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tag:democracynow.org,2013-12-31:blog/1938b7 As part of our look back at the top news stories of 2013, we have complied a list of the 20 most-viewed Democracy Now! segments on democracynow.org. Join the conversation about each of these interviews on our Facebook page and share the list directly from Pinterest .
Hacker Group Anonymous Leaks Chilling Video in Case of Alleged Steubenville Rape, Cover-Up (January 7)
In Steubenville, Ohio, members of a high school football team allegedly raped a female classmate and possibly urinated on her unconscious body over the course of an evening of partying in late August. The young men chronicled their actions on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But after many in the town of Steubenville, including the high school football coach, rallied to the players’ defense, the hacker group &quot;Anonymous&quot; vowed to release the accused players’ personal information unless an apology was made. Anonymous has since released a video showing a male Steubenville high schooler joking about the alleged victim. We’re joined by three guests: Monika Johnson Hostler, president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence; Kristen Gwynne, an associate editor at AlterNet; and &quot;X&quot;, a member of the hacktivist group Anonymous using a pseudonym. Click here for more.
Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement &amp; Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers (March 20)
Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail discusses how the U.S. invasion of Iraq has left behind a legacy of cancer and birth defects suspected of being caused by the U.S. military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus. Noting the birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, Jamail says: &quot;They’re extremely hard to bear witness to. But it’s something that we all need to pay attention to ... What this has generated is, from 2004 up to this day, we are seeing a rate of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah that has surpassed even that in the wake of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that nuclear bombs were dropped on at the end of World War II.&quot; Jamail has also reported on the refugee crisis of more than one million displaced Iraqis still inside the country, who are struggling to survive without government aid, a majority of them living in Baghdad. Click here for more.
Cornel West: Obama’s Response to Trayvon Martin Case Belies Failure to Challenge &quot;New Jim Crow&quot; (July 22)
For a response to President Obama’s comments on the acquittal of George Zimmerman and racism in the United States, we’re joined by Dr. Cornel West, professor at Union Theological Seminary and author of numerous books. On Obama’s remarks comparing himself to Trayvon Martin, West says: &quot;Will that identification hide and conceal the fact there’s a criminal justice system in place that has nearly destroyed two generations of precious, poor black and brown brothers? [Obama] hasn’t said a word until now — five years in office and can’t say a word about a &#39;new Jim Crow.&#39;&quot; Click here for more.
Mississippi Stays Execution of Willie Manning Over FBI’s Admission of Error (May 7)
The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution in the Willie Manning case over an unusual admission from the FBI that its original analysis of the evidence contained errors. Manning was convicted of murdering Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, two white college students, in 1992. The Justice Department sent a letter saying one analyst’s testimony at trial &quot;exceeded the limits of the science and was, therefore, invalid.&quot; Manning’s attorneys argue that no physical evidence ties him to the murders and that testing hair samples and other evidence could identify a different killer. Click here for more.
Breaking: Herman Wallace Dies Just Days After Being Released from 40+ Years in Solitary (October 2)
Democracy Now! has learned from supporters and loved ones of Angola 3 member Herman Wallace that he passed away early on Friday October 4, just three days after being released from prison in Louisiana after 42 years in solitary confinement, and shortly after the state announced it would re-indict him. Wallace was suffering from terminal liver cancer and would have turned 72 on October 13. Click here for more.
Chomsky: Instead of &quot;Illegal&quot; Threat to Syria, U.S. Should Back Chemical Weapons Ban in All Nations (September 11)
In a national address from the White House, President Obama announced he is delaying a plan to strike Syria while pursuing a diplomatic effort from Russia for international monitors to take over and destroy Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons. However, Obama still threatened to use force against Syria if the plan fails. We get reaction to Obama’s speech from world-renowned political dissident and linguist, MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky. &quot;The Russian plan is a godsend for Obama,&quot; Chomsky says. &quot;It saves him from what would look like a very serious defeat. He has not been able to obtain virtually any international support, and it looked as though Congress wasn’t going to support it either, which would leave him completely out on a limb. This leaves him a way out: He can maintain the threat of force, which incidentally is a crime under international law. We should bear in mind that the core principle of the United Nations Charter bars the threat or use of force. So all of this is criminal, to begin with, but he’ll continue with that.&quot; Click here for more.
&quot;A Corporate Trojan Horse&quot;: Obama Pushes Secretive TPP Trade Pact, Would Rewrite Swath of U.S. Laws (October 4)
As the federal government shutdown continues, Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Asia for secret talks on a sweeping new trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP is often referred to by critics as &quot; NAFTA on steroids,&quot; and would establish a free trade zone that would stretch from Vietnam to Chile, encompassing 800 million people — about a third of world trade and nearly 40 percent of the global economy. While the text of the treaty has been largely negotiated behind closed doors and, until June, kept secret from Congress, more than 600 corporate advisers reportedly have access to the measure, including employees of Halliburton and Monsanto. &quot;This is not mainly about trade,&quot; says Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. &quot;It is a corporate Trojan horse. The agreement has 29 chapters, and only five of them have to do with trade. The other 24 chapters either handcuff our domestic governments, limiting food safety, environmental standards, financial regulation, energy and climate policy, or establishing new powers for corporations.&quot; Click here for more.
Ex- CIA Agent, Whistleblower John Kiriakou Sentenced to Prison While Torturers He Exposed Walk Free (January 30)
Former CIA agent John Kiriakou speaks out just days after he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, becoming the first CIA official to face jail time for any reason relating to the U.S. torture program. Under a plea deal, Kiriakou admitted to a single count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by revealing the identity of a covert officer to a freelance reporter, who did not publish it. Supporters say Kiriakou is being unfairly targeted for having been the first CIAofficial to publicly confirm and detail the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding. Kiriakou joins us to discuss his story from Washington, D.C., along with his attorney, Jesselyn Radack, director of National Security &amp; Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project. &quot;This ... was not a case about leaking; this was a case about torture. And I believe I’m going to prison because I blew the whistle on torture,&quot; Kiriakou says. &quot;My oath was to the Constitution. … And to me, torture is unconstitutional.&quot; Click here for more.
Wanted for Killing 3, Christopher Dorner’s Claims of Racism, Corruption Resonate with LAPD’s Critics (February 11)
A manhunt is continuing in California for Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer accused of shooting three people dead. In his online manifesto, Dorner threatened to wage &quot;unconventional and asymmetrical warfare&quot; against a police department he accused of racism and corruption. He was fired from the police department in 2008 after being accused of falsely claiming his training officer kicked a mentally ill suspect in the course of an arrest. On Friday, the LAPD announced it would reopen its investigation of Dorner’s firing and his claims. We’re joined by journalist and activist Davey D, who says, notwithstanding the allegations of murder, Dorner’s manifesto &quot;has opened up old wounds or it’s reaffirmed what people have long suspected or have experienced in terms of [police] brutality. ... I’m really curious as to whether or not these allegations that he has raised, where he names dates, times and places and names, whether or not they actually check out. And I think that needs to be really investigated, above and beyond the immediate scenario which led to his firing.&quot; Click here for more.
Former Black Panther Assata Shakur Added to FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List (May 2)
The FBI has added Assata Shakur to its Most Wanted Terrorist List. In addition, the state of New Jersey announced it was adding $1 million to the FBI’s $1 million reward for her capture. Shakur becomes the first woman ever to make the list and only the second domestic terrorist to be added to the list. Shakur, the former Joanne Chesimard, was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. She was convicted in the May 2, 1973 killing of a New Jersey police officer during a shoot-out that left one of her fellow activists dead. She was shot twice by police during the incident. In 1979, she managed to escape from jail. Shakur fled to Cuba where she received political asylum. She once wrote, &quot;I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the U.S. government’s policy towards people of color.&quot; Click here for more.
Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley’s New Film Exposes Hidden Truths of Covert U.S. Warfare (January 22)
The new documentary &quot;Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield&quot; follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill to Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen as he chases down the hidden truths behind America’s expanding covert wars. We’re joined by Scahill and the film’s director, Rick Rowley, an independent journalist with Big Noise Films. &quot;We’re looking right now at a reality that President Obama has essentially extended the very policies that many of his supporters once opposed under President Bush,&quot; says Scahill, author of the bestseller &quot;Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army&quot; and a forthcoming book named after his film. &quot;One of the things that humbles both of us is that when you arrive in a village in Afghanistan and knock on someone’s door, you’re the first American they’ve seen since the Americans that kicked that door in and killed half their family,&quot; Rowley says. &quot;We promised them that we would do everything we could to make their stories be heard in the U.S. ... Finally we’re able to keep those promises.&quot; Click here for more.
EXCLUSIVE : Owner of Snowden’s Email Service on Why He Closed Lavabit Rather Than Comply With Gov’t (August 13)
Lavabit, an encrypted email service believed to have been used by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, has abruptly shut down. The move came amidst a legal fight that appeared to involve U.S. government attempts to win access to customer information. In a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive, we are joined by Lavabit owner Ladar Levison and his lawyer, Jesse Binnall. &quot;Unfortunately, I can’t talk about it. I would like to, believe me,&quot; Levison says. &quot;I think if the American public knew what our government was doing, they wouldn’t be allowed to do it anymore.&quot; In a message to his customers last week, Levison said: &quot;I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people, or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit.&quot; Levison said he was barred from discussing the events over the past six weeks that led to his decision. Soon after, another secure email provider called Silent Circle also announced it was shutting down. Click here for more.
Jailed for Life for Stealing a $159 Jacket? 3,200 Serving Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Crimes (November 15)
A shocking new study by the American Civil Liberties Union has found that more than 3,200 people nationwide are serving life terms without parole for nonviolent offenses. Of those prisoners, 80 percent are behind bars for drug-related convictions. Sixty-five percent are African-American, 18 percent are white, and 16 percent are Latino — evidence of what the ACLU calls &quot;extreme racial disparities.&quot; The crimes that led to life sentences include stealing gas from a truck, shoplifting, possessing a crack pipe, facilitating a $10 sale of marijuana, and attempting to cash a stolen check. We speak with Jennifer Turner, human rights researcher and author of the new ACLUreport, &quot;A Living Death: Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses.&quot; Click here for more.
Pentagon Reverses Position and Admits U.S. Troops Used White Phosphorus Against Iraqis in Fallujah (November 2005)
The U.S. government has admitted its troops used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against Iraqis during the assault on Fallujah. Chemical weapons experts say such attacks are in violation of international law banning the use of chemical weapons. We speak with columnist George Monbiot and the news director of RAI TV, the Italian TV network that produced the film &quot;Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre.&quot; The U.S. government has now admitted its troops used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against Iraqis during the assault on Fallujah a year ago. Chemical weapons experts say such attacks are in violation of international law banning the use of chemical weapons. Click here for more.
Angela Davis and Assata Shakur’s Lawyer Denounce FBI’s Adding of Exiled Activist to Terrorists List (May 3)
One day after the exiled former Black Panther Assata Shakur became the first woman named to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, we’re joined by another legendary African-American activist, Angela Davis, as well as Shakur’s longtime attorney, Lennox Hinds. Davis, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the subject of the recent film, &quot;Free Angela and All Political Prisoners.&quot; She argues that the FBI’s latest move, much like its initial targeting of Shakur and other Black Panthers four decades ago, is politically motivated. &quot;It seems to me that this act incorporates or reflects the very logic of terrorism,&quot; Davis says. &quot;I can’t help but think that it’s designed to frighten people who are involved in struggles today. Forty years ago seems like it was a long time ago. In the beginning of the 21st century, we’re still fighting around the very same issues — police violence, healthcare, education, people in prison.&quot; A professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University, Hinds has represented Shakur since 1973. &quot;This is a political act pushed by the state of New Jersey, by some members of Congress from Miami, and with the intent of putting pressure on the Cuban government and to inflame public opinion,&quot; Hinds says. &quot;There is no way to appeal someone being put on the terrorists list.&quot; Click here for more.
Did U.S. Gov’t Lie about TWA Flight 800 Crash? Ex-Investigators Seek Probe as New Evidence Emerges (June 20)
Seventeen years ago, TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard. The official government investigation blamed mechanical failure, but now a group of former investigators are petitioning the National Transportation Safety Board to reopen the probe, saying the original report was falsified. Was the plane accidentally shot down by the U.S. Navy conducting a nearby exercise, or was it a terrorist attack? We speak to the filmmakers behind a new documentary on the crash, &quot; TWA Flight 800,&quot; formerCBS News producer Kristina Borjesson and Tom Stalcup, a physicist and co-founder of Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization. We also play an extended excerpt of the film &quot;Shadows of Liberty,&quot; which also explores the controversy. Click here for more.
American Fascism: Ralph Nader Decries How Big Business Has Taken Control of the U.S. Government (June 4)
Describing the United States as an &quot;advanced Third World country,&quot; longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader calls for a new mass movement to challenge the power corporations have in Washington. &quot;It is not too extreme to call our system of government now &#39;American fascism.&#39; It’s the control of government by big business, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt defined in 1938 as fascism,&quot; Nader says. &quot;We have the lowest minimum wage in the Western world. We have the greatest amount of consumer debt. We have the highest child poverty, the highest adult poverty, huge underemployment, a crumbling public works — but huge multi-billionaires and hugely profitable corporations. I say to the American people: What’s your breaking point? When are you going to stop making excuses for yourself? When are you going to stop exaggerating these powers when you know you have the power in this country if you organize it?&quot; Nader has just published a new book, &quot;Told You So: The Big Book of Weekly Columns.&quot; Click here for more.
Bush’s Shrinking World: George W. Bush Cancels Europe Trip as Human Rights Lawyers Threaten Legal Action over Torture (February 2011)
Former President George W. Bush has been forced to cancel a planned trip to Switzerland after human rights attorneys threatened to take legal action against him for sanctioning the use of torture. The Center for Constitutional Rights said they had planned to bring a complaint on behalf of two men who were tortured by U.S. interrogators and held at the military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. &quot;It was disappointing that we’re not able to actually prosecute him,&quot; says CCR legal director Bill Quigley. &quot;But I think it has shown worldwide that even though he was the president of the United States, if you engage in torture... there are consequences. Click here for more.
Greenwald: Is U.S. Exaggerating Threat to Embassies to Silence Critics of NSA Domestic Surveillance? (August 5)
The Obama administration has announced it will keep 19 diplomatic posts in North Africa and the Middle East closed for up to a week, due to fears of a possible militant threat. On Sunday, Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the decision to close the embassies was based on information collected by the National Security Agency. &quot;If we did not have these programs, we simply would not be able to listen in on the bad guys,&quot; Chambliss said, in a direct reference to increasing debate over widespread spying of all Americans revealed by Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian. &quot;Nobody has ever questioned or disputed that the U.S. government, like all governments around the world, ought to be eavesdropping and monitoring the conversations of people who pose an actual threat to the United States in terms of plotting terrorist attacks,&quot; Greenwald says. Pointing to the recent revelations by leaker Edward Snowden that he has reported on, Greenwald explains, &quot;Here we are in the midst of one of the most intense debates and sustained debates that we’ve had in a very long time in this country over the dangers of excess surveillance, and suddenly, an administration that has spent two years claiming that it has decimated al-Qaeda decides that there is this massive threat that involves the closing of embassies and consulates around the world. ... The controversy is over the fact that they are sweeping up billions and billions of emails and telephone calls every single day from people around the world and in the United States who have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism.&quot; Click here for more.
&quot;These Drones Attack Us and the Whole World is Silent&quot;: New Film Exposes Secret U.S. War (October 31)
A U.S. drone strike killed three people in northwest Pakistan on October 31, marking the first such attack since Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif publicly called for President Obama to end the strikes. Amnesty International said the United States may be committing war crimes by killing innocent Pakistani civilians in drone strikes. Today we air extended clips from the new documentary, &quot;Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars,&quot; and speak to filmmaker Robert Greenwald. The film looks at the impact of U.S. drone strikes through more than 70 interviews with attack survivors in Pakistan, a former U.S. drone operator, military officials and more. The film opens with the story of a 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was killed by a drone just days after attending an anti-drone conference in Islamabad. We are also joined by human rights attorney Jennifer Gibson of Reprieve, co-author of the report, &quot;Living Under Drones.&quot; Click here for more.
What do you think is the most important news story of 2013? What was your favorite Democracy Now! interview this year? Join the discussion on our Facebook page.
As part of our look back at the top news stories of 2013, we have complied a list of the 20 most-viewed Democracy Now! segments on democracynow.org. Join the conversation about each of these interviews on our Facebook page and share the list directly from Pinterest.

In Steubenville, Ohio, members of a high school football team allegedly raped a female classmate and possibly urinated on her unconscious body over the course of an evening of partying in late August. The young men chronicled their actions on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But after many in the town of Steubenville, including the high school football coach, rallied to the players’ defense, the hacker group "Anonymous" vowed to release the accused players’ personal information unless an apology was made. Anonymous has since released a video showing a male Steubenville high schooler joking about the alleged victim. We’re joined by three guests: Monika Johnson Hostler, president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence; Kristen Gwynne, an associate editor at AlterNet; and "X", a member of the hacktivist group Anonymous using a pseudonym. Click here for more.

Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers (March 20)

Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail discusses how the U.S. invasion of Iraq has left behind a legacy of cancer and birth defects suspected of being caused by the U.S. military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus. Noting the birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, Jamail says: "They’re extremely hard to bear witness to. But it’s something that we all need to pay attention to ... What this has generated is, from 2004 up to this day, we are seeing a rate of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah that has surpassed even that in the wake of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that nuclear bombs were dropped on at the end of World War II." Jamail has also reported on the refugee crisis of more than one million displaced Iraqis still inside the country, who are struggling to survive without government aid, a majority of them living in Baghdad. Click here for more.

For a response to President Obama’s comments on the acquittal of George Zimmerman and racism in the United States, we’re joined by Dr. Cornel West, professor at Union Theological Seminary and author of numerous books. On Obama’s remarks comparing himself to Trayvon Martin, West says: "Will that identification hide and conceal the fact there’s a criminal justice system in place that has nearly destroyed two generations of precious, poor black and brown brothers? [Obama] hasn’t said a word until now — five years in office and can’t say a word about a 'new Jim Crow.'" Click here for more.

The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution in the Willie Manning case over an unusual admission from the FBI that its original analysis of the evidence contained errors. Manning was convicted of murdering Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, two white college students, in 1992. The Justice Department sent a letter saying one analyst’s testimony at trial "exceeded the limits of the science and was, therefore, invalid." Manning’s attorneys argue that no physical evidence ties him to the murders and that testing hair samples and other evidence could identify a different killer. Click here for more.

Breaking: Herman Wallace Dies Just Days After Being Released from 40+ Years in Solitary (October 2)

Democracy Now! has learned from supporters and loved ones of Angola 3 member Herman Wallace that he passed away early on Friday October 4, just three days after being released from prison in Louisiana after 42 years in solitary confinement, and shortly after the state announced it would re-indict him. Wallace was suffering from terminal liver cancer and would have turned 72 on October 13. Click here for more.

Chomsky: Instead of "Illegal" Threat to Syria, U.S. Should Back Chemical Weapons Ban in All Nations (September 11)

In a national address from the White House, President Obama announced he is delaying a plan to strike Syria while pursuing a diplomatic effort from Russia for international monitors to take over and destroy Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons. However, Obama still threatened to use force against Syria if the plan fails. We get reaction to Obama’s speech from world-renowned political dissident and linguist, MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky. "The Russian plan is a godsend for Obama," Chomsky says. "It saves him from what would look like a very serious defeat. He has not been able to obtain virtually any international support, and it looked as though Congress wasn’t going to support it either, which would leave him completely out on a limb. This leaves him a way out: He can maintain the threat of force, which incidentally is a crime under international law. We should bear in mind that the core principle of the United Nations Charter bars the threat or use of force. So all of this is criminal, to begin with, but he’ll continue with that." Click here for more.

As the federal government shutdown continues, Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Asia for secret talks on a sweeping new trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP is often referred to by critics as "NAFTA on steroids," and would establish a free trade zone that would stretch from Vietnam to Chile, encompassing 800 million people — about a third of world trade and nearly 40 percent of the global economy. While the text of the treaty has been largely negotiated behind closed doors and, until June, kept secret from Congress, more than 600 corporate advisers reportedly have access to the measure, including employees of Halliburton and Monsanto. "This is not mainly about trade," says Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. "It is a corporate Trojan horse. The agreement has 29 chapters, and only five of them have to do with trade. The other 24 chapters either handcuff our domestic governments, limiting food safety, environmental standards, financial regulation, energy and climate policy, or establishing new powers for corporations." Click here for more.

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou speaks out just days after he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, becoming the first CIA official to face jail time for any reason relating to the U.S. torture program. Under a plea deal, Kiriakou admitted to a single count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by revealing the identity of a covert officer to a freelance reporter, who did not publish it. Supporters say Kiriakou is being unfairly targeted for having been the first CIAofficial to publicly confirm and detail the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding. Kiriakou joins us to discuss his story from Washington, D.C., along with his attorney, Jesselyn Radack, director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project. "This ... was not a case about leaking; this was a case about torture. And I believe I’m going to prison because I blew the whistle on torture," Kiriakou says. "My oath was to the Constitution. … And to me, torture is unconstitutional." Click here for more.

A manhunt is continuing in California for Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer accused of shooting three people dead. In his online manifesto, Dorner threatened to wage "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against a police department he accused of racism and corruption. He was fired from the police department in 2008 after being accused of falsely claiming his training officer kicked a mentally ill suspect in the course of an arrest. On Friday, the LAPD announced it would reopen its investigation of Dorner’s firing and his claims. We’re joined by journalist and activist Davey D, who says, notwithstanding the allegations of murder, Dorner’s manifesto "has opened up old wounds or it’s reaffirmed what people have long suspected or have experienced in terms of [police] brutality. ... I’m really curious as to whether or not these allegations that he has raised, where he names dates, times and places and names, whether or not they actually check out. And I think that needs to be really investigated, above and beyond the immediate scenario which led to his firing." Click here for more.

The FBI has added Assata Shakur to its Most Wanted Terrorist List. In addition, the state of New Jersey announced it was adding $1 million to the FBI’s $1 million reward for her capture. Shakur becomes the first woman ever to make the list and only the second domestic terrorist to be added to the list. Shakur, the former Joanne Chesimard, was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. She was convicted in the May 2, 1973 killing of a New Jersey police officer during a shoot-out that left one of her fellow activists dead. She was shot twice by police during the incident. In 1979, she managed to escape from jail. Shakur fled to Cuba where she received political asylum. She once wrote, "I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the U.S. government’s policy towards people of color." Click here for more.

The new documentary "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield" follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill to Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen as he chases down the hidden truths behind America’s expanding covert wars. We’re joined by Scahill and the film’s director, Rick Rowley, an independent journalist with Big Noise Films. "We’re looking right now at a reality that President Obama has essentially extended the very policies that many of his supporters once opposed under President Bush," says Scahill, author of the bestseller "Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army" and a forthcoming book named after his film. "One of the things that humbles both of us is that when you arrive in a village in Afghanistan and knock on someone’s door, you’re the first American they’ve seen since the Americans that kicked that door in and killed half their family," Rowley says. "We promised them that we would do everything we could to make their stories be heard in the U.S. ... Finally we’re able to keep those promises." Click here for more.

EXCLUSIVE: Owner of Snowden’s Email Service on Why He Closed Lavabit Rather Than Comply With Gov’t (August 13)

Lavabit, an encrypted email service believed to have been used by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, has abruptly shut down. The move came amidst a legal fight that appeared to involve U.S. government attempts to win access to customer information. In a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive, we are joined by Lavabit owner Ladar Levison and his lawyer, Jesse Binnall. "Unfortunately, I can’t talk about it. I would like to, believe me," Levison says. "I think if the American public knew what our government was doing, they wouldn’t be allowed to do it anymore." In a message to his customers last week, Levison said: "I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people, or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit." Levison said he was barred from discussing the events over the past six weeks that led to his decision. Soon after, another secure email provider called Silent Circle also announced it was shutting down. Click here for more.

Jailed for Life for Stealing a $159 Jacket? 3,200 Serving Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Crimes (November 15)

A shocking new study by the American Civil Liberties Union has found that more than 3,200 people nationwide are serving life terms without parole for nonviolent offenses. Of those prisoners, 80 percent are behind bars for drug-related convictions. Sixty-five percent are African-American, 18 percent are white, and 16 percent are Latino — evidence of what the ACLU calls "extreme racial disparities." The crimes that led to life sentences include stealing gas from a truck, shoplifting, possessing a crack pipe, facilitating a $10 sale of marijuana, and attempting to cash a stolen check. We speak with Jennifer Turner, human rights researcher and author of the new ACLUreport, "A Living Death: Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses." Click here for more.

Pentagon Reverses Position and Admits U.S. Troops Used White Phosphorus Against Iraqis in Fallujah (November 2005)

The U.S. government has admitted its troops used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against Iraqis during the assault on Fallujah. Chemical weapons experts say such attacks are in violation of international law banning the use of chemical weapons. We speak with columnist George Monbiot and the news director of RAI TV, the Italian TV network that produced the film "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre." The U.S. government has now admitted its troops used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against Iraqis during the assault on Fallujah a year ago. Chemical weapons experts say such attacks are in violation of international law banning the use of chemical weapons. Click here for more.

One day after the exiled former Black Panther Assata Shakur became the first woman named to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, we’re joined by another legendary African-American activist, Angela Davis, as well as Shakur’s longtime attorney, Lennox Hinds. Davis, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the subject of the recent film, "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners." She argues that the FBI’s latest move, much like its initial targeting of Shakur and other Black Panthers four decades ago, is politically motivated. "It seems to me that this act incorporates or reflects the very logic of terrorism," Davis says. "I can’t help but think that it’s designed to frighten people who are involved in struggles today. Forty years ago seems like it was a long time ago. In the beginning of the 21st century, we’re still fighting around the very same issues — police violence, healthcare, education, people in prison." A professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University, Hinds has represented Shakur since 1973. "This is a political act pushed by the state of New Jersey, by some members of Congress from Miami, and with the intent of putting pressure on the Cuban government and to inflame public opinion," Hinds says. "There is no way to appeal someone being put on the terrorists list." Click here for more.

Seventeen years ago, TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard. The official government investigation blamed mechanical failure, but now a group of former investigators are petitioning the National Transportation Safety Board to reopen the probe, saying the original report was falsified. Was the plane accidentally shot down by the U.S. Navy conducting a nearby exercise, or was it a terrorist attack? We speak to the filmmakers behind a new documentary on the crash, "TWA Flight 800," formerCBS News producer Kristina Borjesson and Tom Stalcup, a physicist and co-founder of Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization. We also play an extended excerpt of the film "Shadows of Liberty," which also explores the controversy. Click here for more.

American Fascism: Ralph Nader Decries How Big Business Has Taken Control of the U.S. Government (June 4)

Describing the United States as an "advanced Third World country," longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader calls for a new mass movement to challenge the power corporations have in Washington. "It is not too extreme to call our system of government now 'American fascism.' It’s the control of government by big business, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt defined in 1938 as fascism," Nader says. "We have the lowest minimum wage in the Western world. We have the greatest amount of consumer debt. We have the highest child poverty, the highest adult poverty, huge underemployment, a crumbling public works — but huge multi-billionaires and hugely profitable corporations. I say to the American people: What’s your breaking point? When are you going to stop making excuses for yourself? When are you going to stop exaggerating these powers when you know you have the power in this country if you organize it?" Nader has just published a new book, "Told You So: The Big Book of Weekly Columns." Click here for more.

Former President George W. Bush has been forced to cancel a planned trip to Switzerland after human rights attorneys threatened to take legal action against him for sanctioning the use of torture. The Center for Constitutional Rights said they had planned to bring a complaint on behalf of two men who were tortured by U.S. interrogators and held at the military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. "It was disappointing that we’re not able to actually prosecute him," says CCR legal director Bill Quigley. "But I think it has shown worldwide that even though he was the president of the United States, if you engage in torture... there are consequences. Click here for more.

Greenwald: Is U.S. Exaggerating Threat to Embassies to Silence Critics of NSA Domestic Surveillance? (August 5)

The Obama administration has announced it will keep 19 diplomatic posts in North Africa and the Middle East closed for up to a week, due to fears of a possible militant threat. On Sunday, Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the decision to close the embassies was based on information collected by the National Security Agency. "If we did not have these programs, we simply would not be able to listen in on the bad guys," Chambliss said, in a direct reference to increasing debate over widespread spying of all Americans revealed by Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian. "Nobody has ever questioned or disputed that the U.S. government, like all governments around the world, ought to be eavesdropping and monitoring the conversations of people who pose an actual threat to the United States in terms of plotting terrorist attacks," Greenwald says. Pointing to the recent revelations by leaker Edward Snowden that he has reported on, Greenwald explains, "Here we are in the midst of one of the most intense debates and sustained debates that we’ve had in a very long time in this country over the dangers of excess surveillance, and suddenly, an administration that has spent two years claiming that it has decimated al-Qaeda decides that there is this massive threat that involves the closing of embassies and consulates around the world. ... The controversy is over the fact that they are sweeping up billions and billions of emails and telephone calls every single day from people around the world and in the United States who have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism." Click here for more.

"These Drones Attack Us and the Whole World is Silent": New Film Exposes Secret U.S. War (October 31)

A U.S. drone strike killed three people in northwest Pakistan on October 31, marking the first such attack since Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif publicly called for President Obama to end the strikes. Amnesty International said the United States may be committing war crimes by killing innocent Pakistani civilians in drone strikes. Today we air extended clips from the new documentary, "Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars," and speak to filmmaker Robert Greenwald. The film looks at the impact of U.S. drone strikes through more than 70 interviews with attack survivors in Pakistan, a former U.S. drone operator, military officials and more. The film opens with the story of a 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was killed by a drone just days after attending an anti-drone conference in Islamabad. We are also joined by human rights attorney Jennifer Gibson of Reprieve, co-author of the report, "Living Under Drones." Click here for more.

What do you think is the most important news story of 2013? What was your favorite Democracy Now! interview this year? Join the discussion on our Facebook page.

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Tue, 31 Dec 2013 05:00:00 -0500Steubenville Rape Trial: Blogger Who Exposed Case Speaks Out After Ohio Teens Found Guiltyhttp://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/18/steubenville_rape_trial_blogger_who_exposed
tag:democracynow.org,2013-03-18:en/story/546f69 AMY GOODMAN : We begin our show in Steubenville, Ohio, where two high school football players have been found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl at a party last August. On Sunday, the teenagers, Trent Mays and Ma&#8217;lik Richmond, were found delinquent in the sexual assault of the girl who witnesses testified was too drunk to move or speak. Mays, who was a high school quarterback, was also found delinquent on a second charge: taking and distributing a picture of the girl. Both young men had insisted that any sex that occurred between them and the girl was consensual. After the ruling, they broke down into tears, apologized to the victim, and were sent to a juvenile detention facility. They were also required to register as juvenile sex offenders.
Ohio state Attorney General Mike DeWine, a former U.S. senator, said he plans to convene a grand jury to determine if other crimes had been committed.
ATTORNEY GENERAL MIKE DEWINE : As I&#8217;ve indicated, we&#8217;ve been involved in an extensive investigation, trying to determine, trying to learn if any other individuals committed any crimes. While we have interviewed almost 60 individuals, 16 people refused to talk to our investigators. I have reached the conclusion that this investigation must—cannot be completed, this investigation simply cannot be completed, that we cannot bring finality to this matter without the convening of a grand jury.
AMY GOODMAN : Although the attack occurred in the summer, it only gained national attention after the cyber-activist group Anonymous obtained and published a shocking video from the night of the assault. The now-notorious 12-minute video shows a former classmate of the young men mocking the victim, laughingly referring to her as dead, and continuously joking about sexual assault.
STEUBENVILLE TEEN 1: Is it really rape? Because you don&#8217;t know if she wanted to or not. She might have wanted to. That might have been her final wish.
STEUBENVILLE TEEN 2: No, y&#8217;all think she&#8217;s dead?
STEUBENVILLE TEEN 1: She&#8217;s dead.
AMY GOODMAN : Along with the video, an Instagram photo also went viral. The now-infamous photo shows the two Steubenville high school football players holding their 16-year-old victim over a basement floor, one by her arms, one by her legs. State forensic analysts reportedly sifted through more than 396,000 text messages and 940 video clips recovered from cellphones as part of the investigation.
The Steubenville story has made national and international headlines, largely thanks to a local crime blogger. Before many of the partygoers could delete incriminating social media posts, the blogger, Alexandria Goddard, made copies and publicized them on her website, Prinniefied.com . She was sued for defamation, but the charges have since been dropped. Many Steubenville locals criticized Goddard for bringing negative public attention to the football team; others have praised her for holding sexual perpetrators accountable.
Well, for more, we&#8217;re joined right now by Alexandria Goddard. And in Las Vegas, Nevada, we&#8217;re joined by her First Amendment lawyer, Marc Randazza.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! First, Alexandria, your reaction to Friday—to the verdict that came down yesterday?
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : I&#8217;m glad that the victim had her day in court and that justice was served and, you know, hope that the grand jury that&#8217;s going to convene will hold others accountable who might be found accountable.
AMY GOODMAN : Let&#8217;s talk about that grand jury. Talk about Attorney General Mike DeWine and what he said yesterday.
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : He stated that the investigation can&#8217;t be completed until they convene a grand jury to determine if other charges can be brought forward.
AMY GOODMAN : And why has this taken so long? Can you go back to August, Alexandria, and just give us a timeline? Explain what happened and when you came to know and make public what you knew.
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : I came to know about it on August 22nd, the date that the two were arrested. The incident occurred on August 11th. And I believe in October, November, sometime, they had the probable cause hearing. And, I mean, it&#8217;s a juvenile matter. And the trial was yesterday. But I came to know of it on August 22nd.
AMY GOODMAN : And explain what actually took place. Go back to Steubenville, where you are from, and talk about what happened.
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : There were various end-of-the-summer parties, and the victim was alleged to have been at three different locations, and the rape occurred at the last location. All of these kids were tweeting about the state of her sobriety and taking pictures, sending them back and forth. But that&#8217;s what happened. I mean, there were just several parties, and she was at various parties that evening with the two that were convicted yesterday.
AMY GOODMAN : I want to ask you about the role of cyber-activists in exposing what happened. In January , we spoke to, well, he called himself &quot;X,&quot; a member of the hacktivist group Anonymous, using a pseudonym.
&quot;X&quot;: I think it&#8217;s apparent to anybody who can stomach watching it for the entire 12 minutes. I, myself, here at our location—we&#8217;ve been working night and day on this operation, and I&#8217;ve watched it at least a dozen times, and it makes me sick each time we watch it. I think it speaks for itself.
AMY GOODMAN : He&#8217;s talking, of course, about this video. However, special prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter claimed the actions of the cyber-activist group Anonymous put more pressure on the rape victim.
MARIANNE HEMMETER : No matter how you cut this case, she was the center of the storm. And it wasn&#8217;t just Steubenville or Ohio; it became international. She&#8217;s a 16-year-old girl. She didn&#8217;t want to go forward on charges. She knew something bad had happened. But she was piecing it together like everybody else. And here is a girl who&#8217;s 16 who&#8217;s going to have to testify to the most intimate details of her life, some of which might be embarrassing. And to have not just a local stage, but an international stage, was unbelievably pressure-filled for her—and other witnesses. You know, we had pretty good working relationships with some of the witnesses that you heard from, but once Anonymous hit, there was a chilling effect.
AMY GOODMAN : That was special prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter standing next to Ohio&#8217;s attorney general, Mike DeWine. Alexandria, your response?
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : You know, those—the kids put it on the Internet, and the Internet is an international audience. You know, I believe that Anonymous did bring attention to the case, and—you know, but it&#8217;s also empowered others to speak out and demand that justice be meted out.
AMY GOODMAN : On Sunday, CNN covered the news of the guilty verdict in the Steubenville case in a way that raised some eyebrows. Correspondent Poppy Harlow lamented that the &quot;promising&quot; lives of the rapists had been ruined.
POPPY HARLOW : Incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me, to watch what happened, as these two young men, that had such promising futures—star football players, very good students—literally watched as they believed their life fell apart. One of—one of the young men, Ma&#8217;lik Richmond, when that sentence came down, he collapsed. He collapsed in the arms of his attorney, Walter Madison. He said to him, &quot;My life is over. No one is going to want me now.&quot; Very serious crime here, both found guilty of raping this 16-year-old girl at a series of parties back in August.
AMY GOODMAN : CNN correspondent Poppy Harlow. Alexandria Goddard, your response?
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : My father told me when I was a child, if you do the crime, you do the time. We all know the difference between right and wrong and are responsible for our decisions. And, you know, when—again, if you break the law, you get punished for it. We all know that.
AMY GOODMAN : Can you talk about the role of the football team in Steubenville, where you come from, how important is it, and who these two young men were in the community?
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : I don&#8217;t have knowledge of them personally in the community. I haven&#8217;t lived in the area for some years. The football team is very revered in the town. I mean, they&#8217;re very proud of their football team. But it&#8217;s—you know, it&#8217;s not just Steubenville that loves their football team. That whole Ohio Valley area, you know, their high school football is important to them.
AMY GOODMAN : And what happened around the larger issue of other people taking pictures, not intervening, but photographing, videoing, using their cellphones to—you know, to film what was taking place rather than stopping it, going to this issue of the attorney general, Mike DeWine, saying they&#8217;re going to convene a grand jury?
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : Well, you have a number of children who were taking photographs, retweeting them. And rather than stand up and say, &quot;Stop it,&quot; they were passing around the information and, you know, humiliating and revictimizing this girl through the use of social media.
AMY GOODMAN : I want to talk to you about the lawsuit brought against you, Alexandria, which also brings in your lawyer, Marc Randazza, the lawsuit about you making public these images that you got on Facebook. Can you talk about what you found and how—why you were sued?
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : There were no images from Facebook. Anything that was posted on my website was for public viewing. All Twitter accounts were open. Nothing was private. The lawsuit itself was not because pictures were posted. It was because anonymous commenters on my blog basically dared to have an opinion about some members—you know, some of the people who were involved in the events of that night. And so, the family of the ex-boyfriend sued me and 25 commenters for defamation of character.
AMY GOODMAN : And you were named in the suit, though it was later dropped. Marc Randazza, can you talk about this First Amendment issue?
MARC RANDAZZA : Yeah, the lawsuit was filed as a classic SLAPP suit. The point of it was to shut Alexandria up and to shut up the commenters. I think you&#8217;ve touched on the fact that this was a—the people involved in this enjoy a position of privilege in the community, and they are not used to having their misdeeds laid bare. And Alexandria really picked up the ball when the local mainstream media dropped it and stuffed the story, essentially. And in order to keep that story stuffed, that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m convinced that the lawsuit itself was filed, because it wasn&#8217;t just against her—and, frankly, against her for comments that she made—but they sued her as well for allowing comments by other people, which there&#8217;s very clear federal law that renders her immune for those—for liability for those comments.
AMY GOODMAN : Talk about who Cody Saltsman was—is, Marc Randazza.
MARC RANDAZZA : Well, he was the plaintiff in the case. But, you know, he is—he pretty wisely decided to drop the case, after we began to put up some kind of a fight, along with my local counsels, Mr. Nye and Mr. [Haren]. And the fact is that he actually seemed to have some level of contrition for bringing the case. So, you know, I don&#8217;t want to get too much into him, because he seems to have done the right thing.
AMY GOODMAN : And, Alexandria Goddard, your reaction to them dropping the case?
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : Oh, you know, I was elated. No one wants to be sued. Lawsuits take up very precious time, and I would rather be out doing things I enjoy than battling a defamation suit.
AMY GOODMAN : And, Marc, the issue of other people now—it&#8217;s many months later, but the attorney general talking about convening a grand jury to go after others. Many years ago, there was the New Bedford rape case in a bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the call of the community to not only go after the actual perpetrator, of the men—the people who had raped the woman in the bar, but all those who had been egging them on and who were there and didn&#8217;t try to stop it or call anyone to stop it.
MARC RANDAZZA : And so, what&#8217;s your question?
AMY GOODMAN : The question around the issue of a convening of a grand jury now, many months later, but talking about widening the targets of people who should be prosecuted.
MARC RANDAZZA : Well, look, that&#8217;s—you know, that&#8217;s not the case I&#8217;m involved in. I&#8217;m not the criminal lawyer here; I&#8217;m the First Amendment lawyer here. But I think that the grand jury being convened is a direct result of all of the sunlight put on this case. I&#8217;m convinced that if Ms. Goddard hadn&#8217;t started blogging about this and Anonymous hadn&#8217;t taken up the standard, that this case would have been swept under the rug. And I think that not only were—not only would perhaps justice not have been brought yesterday, but I think we also might have found that the limited amount of justice that was brought would have been brought only upon the heads of the two boys who were sentenced yesterday. If there is wider responsibility, well, then the investigation needs to continue. And I&#8217;m glad that it is.
AMY GOODMAN : In January, we spoke to Monika Johnson Hostler , president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. She said the Steubenville case has forced America to take a hard look at its views on rape.
MONIKA JOHNSON HOSTLER : What we are calling for is not just how this is handled in Steubenville, Ohio, but really asking America to take a hard look at ourselves in how we are—handle sexual violence and rape in our country. I think we&#8217;ve been able to point our fingers and turn our heads to rapes that have happened in other countries and not held ourselves accountable as Americans to say that we absolutely still have a culture of rape, where women and girls are still degraded and dehumanized, and rape is in the fabric of this country. And unfortunately, I would think, centuries later, that we would be further along in terms of our response, but yet we still see Americans blaming victims. So, in terms of our overall response, we&#8217;re calling for America to take a hard look at itself and really think about the culture that we&#8217;re raising our kids in and the things that we are allowing to happen by not acknowledging, as a community, as a society, the importance of supporting the rape victim.
AMY GOODMAN : That was Monika Johnson Hostler, president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Alexandria Goddard, as we wrap up, your response to what she said? And also, given what you went through with the lawsuit, though it was dropped, the kind of chilling effect you think that has for future people like you to get involved in the way that you did as a blogger?
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : I think everyone—you know, we have a responsibility to be involved in our community. And, you know, if you see what you perceive to be injustice, you shouldn&#8217;t sit by and do nothing about it. You should stand up and, you know, protect your right to free speech, but, you know—and what you believe in. That&#8217;s what our country is founded on.
AMY GOODMAN : And will you continue to follow this case, Alexandria?
ALEXANDRIA GODDARD : Yes, I will.
AMY GOODMAN : Alexandria Goddard, Steubenville-based blogger. Marc Randazza, lawyer who represented Alexandria when she was sued for defamation after documenting the rape case. That suit was ultimately dropped.
This is Democracy Now! , democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report . When we come back, it&#8217;s the 10th anniversary of the bombing of Iraq. We&#8217;ll be back in a minute. AMYGOODMAN: We begin our show in Steubenville, Ohio, where two high school football players have been found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl at a party last August. On Sunday, the teenagers, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, were found delinquent in the sexual assault of the girl who witnesses testified was too drunk to move or speak. Mays, who was a high school quarterback, was also found delinquent on a second charge: taking and distributing a picture of the girl. Both young men had insisted that any sex that occurred between them and the girl was consensual. After the ruling, they broke down into tears, apologized to the victim, and were sent to a juvenile detention facility. They were also required to register as juvenile sex offenders.

Ohio state Attorney General Mike DeWine, a former U.S. senator, said he plans to convene a grand jury to determine if other crimes had been committed.

ATTORNEYGENERALMIKEDEWINE: As I’ve indicated, we’ve been involved in an extensive investigation, trying to determine, trying to learn if any other individuals committed any crimes. While we have interviewed almost 60 individuals, 16 people refused to talk to our investigators. I have reached the conclusion that this investigation must—cannot be completed, this investigation simply cannot be completed, that we cannot bring finality to this matter without the convening of a grand jury.

AMYGOODMAN: Although the attack occurred in the summer, it only gained national attention after the cyber-activist group Anonymous obtained and published a shocking video from the night of the assault. The now-notorious 12-minute video shows a former classmate of the young men mocking the victim, laughingly referring to her as dead, and continuously joking about sexual assault.

STEUBENVILLETEEN 1: Is it really rape? Because you don’t know if she wanted to or not. She might have wanted to. That might have been her final wish.

STEUBENVILLETEEN 2: No, y’all think she’s dead?

STEUBENVILLETEEN 1: She’s dead.

AMYGOODMAN: Along with the video, an Instagram photo also went viral. The now-infamous photo shows the two Steubenville high school football players holding their 16-year-old victim over a basement floor, one by her arms, one by her legs. State forensic analysts reportedly sifted through more than 396,000 text messages and 940 video clips recovered from cellphones as part of the investigation.

The Steubenville story has made national and international headlines, largely thanks to a local crime blogger. Before many of the partygoers could delete incriminating social media posts, the blogger, Alexandria Goddard, made copies and publicized them on her website, Prinniefied.com. She was sued for defamation, but the charges have since been dropped. Many Steubenville locals criticized Goddard for bringing negative public attention to the football team; others have praised her for holding sexual perpetrators accountable.

Well, for more, we’re joined right now by Alexandria Goddard. And in Las Vegas, Nevada, we’re joined by her First Amendment lawyer, Marc Randazza.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! First, Alexandria, your reaction to Friday—to the verdict that came down yesterday?

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: I’m glad that the victim had her day in court and that justice was served and, you know, hope that the grand jury that’s going to convene will hold others accountable who might be found accountable.

AMYGOODMAN: Let’s talk about that grand jury. Talk about Attorney General Mike DeWine and what he said yesterday.

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: He stated that the investigation can’t be completed until they convene a grand jury to determine if other charges can be brought forward.

AMYGOODMAN: And why has this taken so long? Can you go back to August, Alexandria, and just give us a timeline? Explain what happened and when you came to know and make public what you knew.

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: I came to know about it on August 22nd, the date that the two were arrested. The incident occurred on August 11th. And I believe in October, November, sometime, they had the probable cause hearing. And, I mean, it’s a juvenile matter. And the trial was yesterday. But I came to know of it on August 22nd.

AMYGOODMAN: And explain what actually took place. Go back to Steubenville, where you are from, and talk about what happened.

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: There were various end-of-the-summer parties, and the victim was alleged to have been at three different locations, and the rape occurred at the last location. All of these kids were tweeting about the state of her sobriety and taking pictures, sending them back and forth. But that’s what happened. I mean, there were just several parties, and she was at various parties that evening with the two that were convicted yesterday.

AMYGOODMAN: I want to ask you about the role of cyber-activists in exposing what happened. In January, we spoke to, well, he called himself "X," a member of the hacktivist group Anonymous, using a pseudonym.

"X": I think it’s apparent to anybody who can stomach watching it for the entire 12 minutes. I, myself, here at our location—we’ve been working night and day on this operation, and I’ve watched it at least a dozen times, and it makes me sick each time we watch it. I think it speaks for itself.

AMYGOODMAN: He’s talking, of course, about this video. However, special prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter claimed the actions of the cyber-activist group Anonymous put more pressure on the rape victim.

MARIANNEHEMMETER: No matter how you cut this case, she was the center of the storm. And it wasn’t just Steubenville or Ohio; it became international. She’s a 16-year-old girl. She didn’t want to go forward on charges. She knew something bad had happened. But she was piecing it together like everybody else. And here is a girl who’s 16 who’s going to have to testify to the most intimate details of her life, some of which might be embarrassing. And to have not just a local stage, but an international stage, was unbelievably pressure-filled for her—and other witnesses. You know, we had pretty good working relationships with some of the witnesses that you heard from, but once Anonymous hit, there was a chilling effect.

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: You know, those—the kids put it on the Internet, and the Internet is an international audience. You know, I believe that Anonymous did bring attention to the case, and—you know, but it’s also empowered others to speak out and demand that justice be meted out.

AMYGOODMAN: On Sunday, CNN covered the news of the guilty verdict in the Steubenville case in a way that raised some eyebrows. Correspondent Poppy Harlow lamented that the "promising" lives of the rapists had been ruined.

POPPYHARLOW: Incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me, to watch what happened, as these two young men, that had such promising futures—star football players, very good students—literally watched as they believed their life fell apart. One of—one of the young men, Ma’lik Richmond, when that sentence came down, he collapsed. He collapsed in the arms of his attorney, Walter Madison. He said to him, "My life is over. No one is going to want me now." Very serious crime here, both found guilty of raping this 16-year-old girl at a series of parties back in August.

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: My father told me when I was a child, if you do the crime, you do the time. We all know the difference between right and wrong and are responsible for our decisions. And, you know, when—again, if you break the law, you get punished for it. We all know that.

AMYGOODMAN: Can you talk about the role of the football team in Steubenville, where you come from, how important is it, and who these two young men were in the community?

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: I don’t have knowledge of them personally in the community. I haven’t lived in the area for some years. The football team is very revered in the town. I mean, they’re very proud of their football team. But it’s—you know, it’s not just Steubenville that loves their football team. That whole Ohio Valley area, you know, their high school football is important to them.

AMYGOODMAN: And what happened around the larger issue of other people taking pictures, not intervening, but photographing, videoing, using their cellphones to—you know, to film what was taking place rather than stopping it, going to this issue of the attorney general, Mike DeWine, saying they’re going to convene a grand jury?

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: Well, you have a number of children who were taking photographs, retweeting them. And rather than stand up and say, "Stop it," they were passing around the information and, you know, humiliating and revictimizing this girl through the use of social media.

AMYGOODMAN: I want to talk to you about the lawsuit brought against you, Alexandria, which also brings in your lawyer, Marc Randazza, the lawsuit about you making public these images that you got on Facebook. Can you talk about what you found and how—why you were sued?

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: There were no images from Facebook. Anything that was posted on my website was for public viewing. All Twitter accounts were open. Nothing was private. The lawsuit itself was not because pictures were posted. It was because anonymous commenters on my blog basically dared to have an opinion about some members—you know, some of the people who were involved in the events of that night. And so, the family of the ex-boyfriend sued me and 25 commenters for defamation of character.

AMYGOODMAN: And you were named in the suit, though it was later dropped. Marc Randazza, can you talk about this First Amendment issue?

MARCRANDAZZA: Yeah, the lawsuit was filed as a classic SLAPP suit. The point of it was to shut Alexandria up and to shut up the commenters. I think you’ve touched on the fact that this was a—the people involved in this enjoy a position of privilege in the community, and they are not used to having their misdeeds laid bare. And Alexandria really picked up the ball when the local mainstream media dropped it and stuffed the story, essentially. And in order to keep that story stuffed, that’s why I’m convinced that the lawsuit itself was filed, because it wasn’t just against her—and, frankly, against her for comments that she made—but they sued her as well for allowing comments by other people, which there’s very clear federal law that renders her immune for those—for liability for those comments.

AMYGOODMAN: Talk about who Cody Saltsman was—is, Marc Randazza.

MARCRANDAZZA: Well, he was the plaintiff in the case. But, you know, he is—he pretty wisely decided to drop the case, after we began to put up some kind of a fight, along with my local counsels, Mr. Nye and Mr. [Haren]. And the fact is that he actually seemed to have some level of contrition for bringing the case. So, you know, I don’t want to get too much into him, because he seems to have done the right thing.

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: Oh, you know, I was elated. No one wants to be sued. Lawsuits take up very precious time, and I would rather be out doing things I enjoy than battling a defamation suit.

AMYGOODMAN: And, Marc, the issue of other people now—it’s many months later, but the attorney general talking about convening a grand jury to go after others. Many years ago, there was the New Bedford rape case in a bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the call of the community to not only go after the actual perpetrator, of the men—the people who had raped the woman in the bar, but all those who had been egging them on and who were there and didn’t try to stop it or call anyone to stop it.

MARCRANDAZZA: And so, what’s your question?

AMYGOODMAN: The question around the issue of a convening of a grand jury now, many months later, but talking about widening the targets of people who should be prosecuted.

MARCRANDAZZA: Well, look, that’s—you know, that’s not the case I’m involved in. I’m not the criminal lawyer here; I’m the First Amendment lawyer here. But I think that the grand jury being convened is a direct result of all of the sunlight put on this case. I’m convinced that if Ms. Goddard hadn’t started blogging about this and Anonymous hadn’t taken up the standard, that this case would have been swept under the rug. And I think that not only were—not only would perhaps justice not have been brought yesterday, but I think we also might have found that the limited amount of justice that was brought would have been brought only upon the heads of the two boys who were sentenced yesterday. If there is wider responsibility, well, then the investigation needs to continue. And I’m glad that it is.

AMYGOODMAN: In January, we spoke to Monika Johnson Hostler, president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. She said the Steubenville case has forced America to take a hard look at its views on rape.

MONIKAJOHNSONHOSTLER: What we are calling for is not just how this is handled in Steubenville, Ohio, but really asking America to take a hard look at ourselves in how we are—handle sexual violence and rape in our country. I think we’ve been able to point our fingers and turn our heads to rapes that have happened in other countries and not held ourselves accountable as Americans to say that we absolutely still have a culture of rape, where women and girls are still degraded and dehumanized, and rape is in the fabric of this country. And unfortunately, I would think, centuries later, that we would be further along in terms of our response, but yet we still see Americans blaming victims. So, in terms of our overall response, we’re calling for America to take a hard look at itself and really think about the culture that we’re raising our kids in and the things that we are allowing to happen by not acknowledging, as a community, as a society, the importance of supporting the rape victim.

AMYGOODMAN: That was Monika Johnson Hostler, president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Alexandria Goddard, as we wrap up, your response to what she said? And also, given what you went through with the lawsuit, though it was dropped, the kind of chilling effect you think that has for future people like you to get involved in the way that you did as a blogger?

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: I think everyone—you know, we have a responsibility to be involved in our community. And, you know, if you see what you perceive to be injustice, you shouldn’t sit by and do nothing about it. You should stand up and, you know, protect your right to free speech, but, you know—and what you believe in. That’s what our country is founded on.

AMYGOODMAN: And will you continue to follow this case, Alexandria?

ALEXANDRIAGODDARD: Yes, I will.

AMYGOODMAN: Alexandria Goddard, Steubenville-based blogger. Marc Randazza, lawyer who represented Alexandria when she was sued for defamation after documenting the rape case. That suit was ultimately dropped.

This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, it’s the 10th anniversary of the bombing of Iraq. We’ll be back in a minute.

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Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400Teaching Men Not to Rape: Survivor Zerlina Maxwell Defies Threats After Speaking Out on Fox Newshttp://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/15/teaching_men_not_to_rape_survivor
tag:democracynow.org,2013-03-15:en/story/234ce0 JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to a story in the crosshairs of women&#8217;s rights and gun control. Political analyst Zerlina Maxwell is refusing to be silent after receiving racially fueled death threats for speaking out against rape. Maxwell, who is a rape survivor, appeared on a Fox News segment with Sean Hannity last week about the possibility of arming women to prevent rape. She said the responsibility should lie instead with men.
SEAN HANNITY : Women have been recommended that they use whistles and, what, pens, that they faint, fake faint, urinate, puke on people—the most idiotic things that have been said by these arrogant, ignorant politicians out there.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Well, I think that the entire conversation is wrong. I don&#8217;t want anybody to be telling women anything. I don&#8217;t want women—I don&#8217;t want men to be telling me what to wear, how to act, not to drink. And I don&#8217;t, honestly, want you to tell me that I needed a gun in order to prevent my rape. And in my case—
SEAN HANNITY : I didn&#8217;t.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : In my case, don&#8217;t tell me if I had only had a gun, I wouldn&#8217;t have been raped, because it&#8217;s still putting it on me to prevent the rape.
SEAN HANNITY : By the way, but you have—you have written about this.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : I have, yes.
SEAN HANNITY : That this happened to you.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Yes. And I was attacked by someone I knew. So you&#8217;re required—if what you&#8217;re saying works out in reality, not in a theoretical scenario, you&#8217;re requiring that I shoot someone that I know?
SEAN HANNITY : No, no, no, I&#8217;m not—
ZERLINA MAXWELL : That is not the reality.
SEAN HANNITY : No, no, no. No, whoa, whoa, hold on.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Two-thirds of women are attacked by someone they know.
SEAN HANNITY : Nobody is requiring that you do it. I have carried a weapon my entire adult life, and I&#8217;ve had license to carry in five—the five recent states that I&#8217;ve lived in. And I am trained. I&#8217;m a marksman in the use of a pistol. I have been since I&#8217;m 11 years old. I&#8217;ve been a good shot. Only if women choose to, they ought to have the right. That ought to be their choice.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : I don&#8217;t think that we should be telling women anything. I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there with prevention.
SEAN HANNITY : Well, criminals are not going to listen.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : No, but we&#8217;re not talking about—we&#8217;re not—
SEAN HANNITY : So I agree with you, but—
ZERLINA MAXWELL : I mean, yeah, men are committing a crime. But many of the men that commit rape are people that we know.
SEAN HANNITY : But criminals are not going to listen to Sean Hannity.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : But you&#8217;re talking about—
SEAN HANNITY : No man should do that to anybody.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : You&#8217;re talking about it as if they&#8217;re some faceless, nameless criminal, when it—a lot of times it&#8217;s someone that you know and trust.
SEAN HANNITY : Well, I&#8217;m saying that women need to know that these situations arise, and we&#8217;ve got to—evil exists in the world. Evil exists.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Yes, but we can prevent rape by telling men not to commit it.
GAYLE TROTTER : No, that&#8217;s not right. That is not right.
SEAN HANNITY : They&#8217;re not going to listen.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : That is—that is the core argument.
SEAN HANNITY : Criminals will not listen.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : No, we&#8217;re not talking about criminals; we&#8217;re talking about a cultural—
SEAN HANNITY : So I want women—I want women to be able to protect themselves, don&#8217;t you?
ZERLINA MAXWELL : I want women to be able to protect themselves, yes, but I want women to not be in this situation. I&#8217;d like—
SEAN HANNITY : I agree with you.
GAYLE TROTTER : But they&#8217;re going to be in that situation.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : No, that&#8217;s not true. If you train men not to grow up to become rapists, you prevent rape.
GAYLE TROTTER : That&#8217;s not correct.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : That is the core of the problem.
SEAN HANNITY : You think you could stop—you think—you think you could tell a rapist to stop doing what he&#8217;s doing?
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Yes, yes. You can—
SEAN HANNITY : Do you, really? And he&#8217;s going to listen to a—
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Yes.
SEAN HANNITY : —an ad campaign to stop?
ZERLINA MAXWELL : There are organizations that do this. Men stop—men can stop rape. Men Stopping Violence. They train young men to not rape.
AMY GOODMAN : In response to her remarks, Maxwell received a torrent of racially fueled abuse on social media with people saying she deserved to be gang-raped and killed. One person wrote, quote, &quot;I hope you get raped and your throat slit! Maybe then you understand why white women have to be armed!&quot;
Well, on Monday, she responded to the comments on MSNBC , saying, quote, &quot;I&#8217;m certainly taking steps to protect my emotional health, but I will not be quiet because I refuse to be bullied into silence.&quot;
For more, we&#8217;re joined in studio by Zerlina Maxwell herself, political analyst, contributor to Ebony.com .
Welcome to Democracy Now!
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Thank you so much.
AMY GOODMAN : Well, you&#8217;ve been through quite an ordeal.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Yes, it&#8217;s been a very long week. But I think what&#8217;s come out on the good side of things is that I&#8217;m getting a lot of support from other survivors, that say, you know, &quot;I&#8217;m really supportive of your message.&quot; And really, what I was trying to say is that the conversation about guns has nothing to do with the conversation about rape and prevention. And again, it&#8217;s just another way to put it on women and putting it on them to have the responsibility to prevent rape, and that&#8217;s the wrong way to do it.
AMY GOODMAN : What is Fox saying to you about the kind of comments you&#8217;ve gotten afterwards?
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Well, you know, I&#8217;ve gotten a lot of support from them. And in the end, I actually don&#8217;t put it on Fox&#8217;s shoulders as to why I got the reaction that I did. The segment was covered in conservative media, so it was when it went up on the conservative websites when I started getting a lot of the hateful comments.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, you&#8217;ve been a frequent guest on Fox News in the past. Have you ever gotten the kind of reaction that you&#8217;ve gotten on this particular issue?
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Well, this is my first time ever talking about this particular issue, but I have done segments about guns, because that&#8217;s, you know, a hot topic right now, and I&#8217;ve never, ever received any of the feedback like the ones, the violent feedback, that I got this week. Normally, it&#8217;s just: &quot;I disagree. You&#8217;re stupid.&quot; That&#8217;s fine. You know, I can deal with that. You just, you know, ignore that type of comment. But when it goes to violence and people being very, very cruel, especially since I outed myself as a rape survivor in this segment, which actually wasn&#8217;t the clip that was on conservative media sites—they took that part out—but I think that, you know, when I&#8217;m putting myself out there and I&#8217;m being vulnerable, because I think the message and the issue is important, you know, and you respond with violence, I think in many ways you&#8217;re proving my point, that there is a cultural problem that we need to address.
AMY GOODMAN : Zerlina, you wrote a piece this week, &quot;Five Ways We Can Teach Men Not to Rape.&quot; Talk about those ways.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Yes. We need to teach people what consent is. And, you know, this week we&#8217;re seeing in Ohio the Steubenville rape trial with two high school football players, and the defense attorney is basically arguing that she was too drunk in order to say no, and so that means she&#8217;s implying that she consented to everything that happened when she began drinking that night. And, you know, number one on the list is, we need to teach young men about consent, because I think it&#8217;s not that people don&#8217;t know that rape is wrong. I think we all can agree that, you know, people know that it&#8217;s wrong. But I think a lot of people don&#8217;t know what rape is. And so, there are times when young men will be in a situation where they do something that they think is ambiguous, but in—legally, it&#8217;s classified as rape. And, you know, it all comes down to consent and knowing what that is.
AMY GOODMAN : One of the things you talk about and you raised on Fox and you talk about in your piece on the Steubenville case, which is headlined &quot;Why Acquaintance Rape is Not a Myth&quot; —
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Right.
AMY GOODMAN : —is that most women are raped by people they know.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Right. And this is one of the reasons why the gun conversation is completely ridiculous on its face in terms of prevention of rape, because most women are going to be in a situation where they know the person, right? So you&#8217;re not going to be out on a date or in your apartment with an acquaintance and have a gun out. That&#8217;s just not—I mean, if you—particularly because most guns, if you&#8217;re doing it the appropriate way, you&#8217;re going to lock it up and make sure that it&#8217;s not stolen or used by a child. And so, you&#8217;re not going to have your gun on hand any time something like this comes up. And I think the problem is, is that too many women, 80 percent of women, are raped by someone they know. And so, you&#8217;re not going to have the gun out.
And I think the most important thing is that people understand that rape happens in this way, and not in the jump-out-of-the-bushes stranger rape type of way, the majority of times. That, of course, happens, but the majority of rapes are this other way, this acquaintance, date-rape type of way. And we have to acknowledge that this is a real thing. This is not—this is not something that we can pretend doesn&#8217;t exist.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And this whole emphasis now, or this attempt to solve everything, all the major problems by arming yourself—
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Right, right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —whether it&#8217;s the school shootings now and now—and Hannity discussing the issue of rape, what does it tell you about the problems we face as a society that we see—constantly see the need to, well, arm yourself to protect yourself against &quot;evil&quot; in the world?
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Well, I mean, one of the things that was telling about the &quot;evil&quot; part of the segment was that rape, in many instances—and I think Steubenville is a perfect example of this. It&#8217;s not about evil, right? In Steubenville, those boys are very—fairly ordinary, right? They play football. They&#8217;re from a small Midwest town. They&#8217;re really ordinary. And it&#8217;s the conditioning they received as young men leading into their teenage years that led them to allegedly do this. And so, I think it has to do—I mean, the gun issue is just completely separate. And I think, in many ways, they&#8217;re exploiting women&#8217;s rights in order to promote just a pro-gun agenda. And I think that that&#8217;s wrong. And so, I just wanted to make that point clear in the segment.
AMY GOODMAN : I want to turn to a hearing on gun control measures in Colorado last week that Sean Hannity brought up during your appearance on his show. This is the testimony of one unnamed rape survivor.
UNIDENTIFIED RAPE SURVIVOR : The harsh reality, as a woman, is that a firearm is the one equalizing factor when met against an opponent much larger than me. The question of my life is, and will remain to be, what would have been different if I had been able to carry my firearm that night?
AMY GOODMAN : Your response, Zerlina?
ZERLINA MAXWELL : You know, that&#8217;s hard for me to watch, because, you know, as a fellow survivor, I&#8217;m supportive of her, you know, thought process, and &quot;It&#8217;s not my fault, and I could have prevented it,&quot; because I went through a similar process. I think a lot of survivors go through that. &quot;What could I have done differently? Maybe if I hadn&#8217;t gone out?&quot; You know, you put it on yourself, the responsibility on yourself.
But I think that the response that—I didn&#8217;t actually think that the lecture, mini lecture, she got from the Democratic representative in that, at the end of that clip, was necessary, either. I don&#8217;t really want anyone to be lecturing rape survivors about anything, because many of them put it on themselves, they blame themselves. You&#8217;re already going through that process. You don&#8217;t need anybody else to put more on you. And so, you feel a deeper sense of guilt, as if you could have prevented it, when in reality you can&#8217;t. I think that&#8217;s the core of the issue.
AMY GOODMAN : Can you talk about anti-rape strategies that you think work?
ZERLINA MAXWELL : I think men can stop rape. I keep citing them in every interview that I do, because one of the things that I did as a journalist, I went and covered one of their bystander intervention workshops. And it was incredible. It changed my, you know, view on humanity in a lot of ways, because it was 17- to 22-year-old boys, and they learned really passive strategies on how to intervene if they see a troubling situation at a party. And it&#8217;s not about confronting someone and saying, you know, &quot;Get away from that girl. You know, she looks to drunk.&quot; It&#8217;s not really necessarily about that. You can do it in very nonconfrontational ways. And I think that this is revolutionary, because you want to prevent these situations before they come up. And that&#8217;s why a gun is not going to solve it, because that&#8217;s really after something has already begun that&#8217;s bad. So, if you can tell young men to intervene when they see their female friend, or a guy friend even, right? So, say, he is in a situation where he&#8217;s trying to talk to a girl that seems that—you know, to be too intoxicated, &quot;Hey, man, maybe you don&#8217;t want to talk to that girl. Maybe you don&#8217;t want to leave with her. She looks too intoxicated. You don&#8217;t want to get into that situation.&quot; It can be something very small, and then you can stop these situations from happening.
AMY GOODMAN : Well, Zerlina, we want to thank you very much for being with us.
ZERLINA MAXWELL : Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN : Your comment to those who have written these racist death threats and rape threats against you?
ZERLINA MAXWELL : You know, I wish them well.
AMY GOODMAN : Zerlina Maxwell, political analyst, contributor to Ebony.com . This is Democracy Now! , democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report . JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to a story in the crosshairs of women’s rights and gun control. Political analyst Zerlina Maxwell is refusing to be silent after receiving racially fueled death threats for speaking out against rape. Maxwell, who is a rape survivor, appeared on a Fox News segment with Sean Hannity last week about the possibility of arming women to prevent rape. She said the responsibility should lie instead with men.

SEANHANNITY: Women have been recommended that they use whistles and, what, pens, that they faint, fake faint, urinate, puke on people—the most idiotic things that have been said by these arrogant, ignorant politicians out there.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Well, I think that the entire conversation is wrong. I don’t want anybody to be telling women anything. I don’t want women—I don’t want men to be telling me what to wear, how to act, not to drink. And I don’t, honestly, want you to tell me that I needed a gun in order to prevent my rape. And in my case—

SEANHANNITY: I didn’t.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: In my case, don’t tell me if I had only had a gun, I wouldn’t have been raped, because it’s still putting it on me to prevent the rape.

SEANHANNITY: By the way, but you have—you have written about this.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: I have, yes.

SEANHANNITY: That this happened to you.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Yes. And I was attacked by someone I knew. So you’re required—if what you’re saying works out in reality, not in a theoretical scenario, you’re requiring that I shoot someone that I know?

SEANHANNITY: No, no, no, I’m not—

ZERLINAMAXWELL: That is not the reality.

SEANHANNITY: No, no, no. No, whoa, whoa, hold on.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Two-thirds of women are attacked by someone they know.

SEANHANNITY: Nobody is requiring that you do it. I have carried a weapon my entire adult life, and I’ve had license to carry in five—the five recent states that I’ve lived in. And I am trained. I’m a marksman in the use of a pistol. I have been since I’m 11 years old. I’ve been a good shot. Only if women choose to, they ought to have the right. That ought to be their choice.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: I don’t think that we should be telling women anything. I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there with prevention.

SEANHANNITY: Well, criminals are not going to listen.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: No, but we’re not talking about—we’re not—

SEANHANNITY: So I agree with you, but—

ZERLINAMAXWELL: I mean, yeah, men are committing a crime. But many of the men that commit rape are people that we know.

SEANHANNITY: But criminals are not going to listen to Sean Hannity.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: But you’re talking about—

SEANHANNITY: No man should do that to anybody.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: You’re talking about it as if they’re some faceless, nameless criminal, when it—a lot of times it’s someone that you know and trust.

SEANHANNITY: Well, I’m saying that women need to know that these situations arise, and we’ve got to—evil exists in the world. Evil exists.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Yes, but we can prevent rape by telling men not to commit it.

GAYLETROTTER: No, that’s not right. That is not right.

SEANHANNITY: They’re not going to listen.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: That is—that is the core argument.

SEANHANNITY: Criminals will not listen.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: No, we’re not talking about criminals; we’re talking about a cultural—

SEANHANNITY: So I want women—I want women to be able to protect themselves, don’t you?

ZERLINAMAXWELL: I want women to be able to protect themselves, yes, but I want women to not be in this situation. I’d like—

SEANHANNITY: I agree with you.

GAYLETROTTER: But they’re going to be in that situation.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: No, that’s not true. If you train men not to grow up to become rapists, you prevent rape.

GAYLETROTTER: That’s not correct.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: That is the core of the problem.

SEANHANNITY: You think you could stop—you think—you think you could tell a rapist to stop doing what he’s doing?

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Yes, yes. You can—

SEANHANNITY: Do you, really? And he’s going to listen to a—

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Yes.

SEANHANNITY: —an ad campaign to stop?

ZERLINAMAXWELL: There are organizations that do this. Men stop—men can stop rape. Men Stopping Violence. They train young men to not rape.

AMYGOODMAN: In response to her remarks, Maxwell received a torrent of racially fueled abuse on social media with people saying she deserved to be gang-raped and killed. One person wrote, quote, "I hope you get raped and your throat slit! Maybe then you understand why white women have to be armed!"

Well, on Monday, she responded to the comments on MSNBC, saying, quote, "I’m certainly taking steps to protect my emotional health, but I will not be quiet because I refuse to be bullied into silence."

For more, we’re joined in studio by Zerlina Maxwell herself, political analyst, contributor to Ebony.com.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Thank you so much.

AMYGOODMAN: Well, you’ve been through quite an ordeal.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Yes, it’s been a very long week. But I think what’s come out on the good side of things is that I’m getting a lot of support from other survivors, that say, you know, "I’m really supportive of your message." And really, what I was trying to say is that the conversation about guns has nothing to do with the conversation about rape and prevention. And again, it’s just another way to put it on women and putting it on them to have the responsibility to prevent rape, and that’s the wrong way to do it.

AMYGOODMAN: What is Fox saying to you about the kind of comments you’ve gotten afterwards?

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Well, you know, I’ve gotten a lot of support from them. And in the end, I actually don’t put it on Fox’s shoulders as to why I got the reaction that I did. The segment was covered in conservative media, so it was when it went up on the conservative websites when I started getting a lot of the hateful comments.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, you’ve been a frequent guest on Fox News in the past. Have you ever gotten the kind of reaction that you’ve gotten on this particular issue?

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Well, this is my first time ever talking about this particular issue, but I have done segments about guns, because that’s, you know, a hot topic right now, and I’ve never, ever received any of the feedback like the ones, the violent feedback, that I got this week. Normally, it’s just: "I disagree. You’re stupid." That’s fine. You know, I can deal with that. You just, you know, ignore that type of comment. But when it goes to violence and people being very, very cruel, especially since I outed myself as a rape survivor in this segment, which actually wasn’t the clip that was on conservative media sites—they took that part out—but I think that, you know, when I’m putting myself out there and I’m being vulnerable, because I think the message and the issue is important, you know, and you respond with violence, I think in many ways you’re proving my point, that there is a cultural problem that we need to address.

AMYGOODMAN: Zerlina, you wrote a piece this week, "Five Ways We Can Teach Men Not to Rape." Talk about those ways.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Yes. We need to teach people what consent is. And, you know, this week we’re seeing in Ohio the Steubenville rape trial with two high school football players, and the defense attorney is basically arguing that she was too drunk in order to say no, and so that means she’s implying that she consented to everything that happened when she began drinking that night. And, you know, number one on the list is, we need to teach young men about consent, because I think it’s not that people don’t know that rape is wrong. I think we all can agree that, you know, people know that it’s wrong. But I think a lot of people don’t know what rape is. And so, there are times when young men will be in a situation where they do something that they think is ambiguous, but in—legally, it’s classified as rape. And, you know, it all comes down to consent and knowing what that is.

AMYGOODMAN: One of the things you talk about and you raised on Fox and you talk about in your piece on the Steubenville case, which is headlined "Why Acquaintance Rape is Not a Myth" —

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Right.

AMYGOODMAN: —is that most women are raped by people they know.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Right. And this is one of the reasons why the gun conversation is completely ridiculous on its face in terms of prevention of rape, because most women are going to be in a situation where they know the person, right? So you’re not going to be out on a date or in your apartment with an acquaintance and have a gun out. That’s just not—I mean, if you—particularly because most guns, if you’re doing it the appropriate way, you’re going to lock it up and make sure that it’s not stolen or used by a child. And so, you’re not going to have your gun on hand any time something like this comes up. And I think the problem is, is that too many women, 80 percent of women, are raped by someone they know. And so, you’re not going to have the gun out.

And I think the most important thing is that people understand that rape happens in this way, and not in the jump-out-of-the-bushes stranger rape type of way, the majority of times. That, of course, happens, but the majority of rapes are this other way, this acquaintance, date-rape type of way. And we have to acknowledge that this is a real thing. This is not—this is not something that we can pretend doesn’t exist.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And this whole emphasis now, or this attempt to solve everything, all the major problems by arming yourself—

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Right, right.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —whether it’s the school shootings now and now—and Hannity discussing the issue of rape, what does it tell you about the problems we face as a society that we see—constantly see the need to, well, arm yourself to protect yourself against "evil" in the world?

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Well, I mean, one of the things that was telling about the "evil" part of the segment was that rape, in many instances—and I think Steubenville is a perfect example of this. It’s not about evil, right? In Steubenville, those boys are very—fairly ordinary, right? They play football. They’re from a small Midwest town. They’re really ordinary. And it’s the conditioning they received as young men leading into their teenage years that led them to allegedly do this. And so, I think it has to do—I mean, the gun issue is just completely separate. And I think, in many ways, they’re exploiting women’s rights in order to promote just a pro-gun agenda. And I think that that’s wrong. And so, I just wanted to make that point clear in the segment.

AMYGOODMAN: I want to turn to a hearing on gun control measures in Colorado last week that Sean Hannity brought up during your appearance on his show. This is the testimony of one unnamed rape survivor.

UNIDENTIFIEDRAPESURVIVOR: The harsh reality, as a woman, is that a firearm is the one equalizing factor when met against an opponent much larger than me. The question of my life is, and will remain to be, what would have been different if I had been able to carry my firearm that night?

AMYGOODMAN: Your response, Zerlina?

ZERLINAMAXWELL: You know, that’s hard for me to watch, because, you know, as a fellow survivor, I’m supportive of her, you know, thought process, and "It’s not my fault, and I could have prevented it," because I went through a similar process. I think a lot of survivors go through that. "What could I have done differently? Maybe if I hadn’t gone out?" You know, you put it on yourself, the responsibility on yourself.

But I think that the response that—I didn’t actually think that the lecture, mini lecture, she got from the Democratic representative in that, at the end of that clip, was necessary, either. I don’t really want anyone to be lecturing rape survivors about anything, because many of them put it on themselves, they blame themselves. You’re already going through that process. You don’t need anybody else to put more on you. And so, you feel a deeper sense of guilt, as if you could have prevented it, when in reality you can’t. I think that’s the core of the issue.

AMYGOODMAN: Can you talk about anti-rape strategies that you think work?

ZERLINAMAXWELL: I think men can stop rape. I keep citing them in every interview that I do, because one of the things that I did as a journalist, I went and covered one of their bystander intervention workshops. And it was incredible. It changed my, you know, view on humanity in a lot of ways, because it was 17- to 22-year-old boys, and they learned really passive strategies on how to intervene if they see a troubling situation at a party. And it’s not about confronting someone and saying, you know, "Get away from that girl. You know, she looks to drunk." It’s not really necessarily about that. You can do it in very nonconfrontational ways. And I think that this is revolutionary, because you want to prevent these situations before they come up. And that’s why a gun is not going to solve it, because that’s really after something has already begun that’s bad. So, if you can tell young men to intervene when they see their female friend, or a guy friend even, right? So, say, he is in a situation where he’s trying to talk to a girl that seems that—you know, to be too intoxicated, "Hey, man, maybe you don’t want to talk to that girl. Maybe you don’t want to leave with her. She looks too intoxicated. You don’t want to get into that situation." It can be something very small, and then you can stop these situations from happening.

AMYGOODMAN: Well, Zerlina, we want to thank you very much for being with us.

ZERLINAMAXWELL: Thank you.

AMYGOODMAN: Your comment to those who have written these racist death threats and rape threats against you?

ZERLINAMAXWELL: You know, I wish them well.

AMYGOODMAN: Zerlina Maxwell, political analyst, contributor to Ebony.com. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.

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Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400Hacker Group Anonymous Leaks Chilling Video in Case of Alleged Steubenville Rape, Cover-Uphttp://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/7/hacker_group_anonymous_leaks_chilling_video
tag:democracynow.org,2013-01-07:en/story/bbe78b AMY GOODMAN : Following the death of a young rape victim that galvanized tens of thousands of protesters in India, we turn now to a case of sexual violence here in the United States that&#8217;s only recently generated national attention, though it happened months ago. That&#8217;s the case of Steubenville, Ohio, where members of a high school football team allegedly raped an underage girl, possibly urinated on her unconscious body, over the course of an evening of partying in late August.
The young men chronicled their actions on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, using words such as &quot;drunk girl,&quot; &quot;rape&quot; in their posts. One former football player tweeted, quote, &quot;Song of the night is definitely Rape Me by Nirvana,&quot; and, quote, &quot;Some people deserve to be peed on.&quot; In one video, an 18-year-old laughs about how unconscious the alleged rape victim was during the incident and refers to her as, quote, &quot;the dead girl.&quot;
STEUBENVILLE TEEN 1: Is it really rape? Because you don&#8217;t know if she wanted to or not. She might have wanted to. That might have been her final wish.
STEUBENVILLE TEEN 2: No, y&#8217;all think she&#8217;s dead?
STEUBENVILLE TEEN 1: She&#8217;s dead.
AMY GOODMAN : Before many of the partygoers could delete their incriminating posts, local crime blogger Alexandria Goddard made copies and publicized them on her website . She was sued for defamation, but the charges have since been dropped. Many Steubenville locals have criticized Goddard and the victim for bringing negative public attention to the football team. Head football coach Reno Saccoccia has refused to bench his players and reportedly advised them to delete any incriminating messages.
Well, now the cyber-activist group Anonymous has launched a campaign to unmask what they say is the football-crazy town&#8217;s attempt to cover up the sexual assault. Last month, the group hijacked the football team&#8217;s website and threatened to release the personal data of school officials, coaches and every player on the team if those involved in the suspected rape did not publicly apologize.
In August, after the girl&#8217;s parents reported the suspected rape, two football players were arrested and later charged with kidnapping and raping the 16-year-old woman. They are scheduled to stand trial as juveniles in February. However, on Saturday, Sheriff Fred Abdalla told protesters no more suspects would be charged in the rape case. Amidst boos from the crowds, Abdalla defended his department&#8217;s commitment to prosecuting sexual offenders.
SHERIFF FRED ABDALLA : When I came into this office, I made a commitment to myself.
UNIDENTIFIED : When did you come in office?
SHERIFF FRED ABDALLA : In 1985—that I would go after those people that have raped or those people who have sexually abused our young children. In the last—in the last 28 years, me and my officers, Captain Bill, have arrested over 200-plus individuals for sexually abusing children. And we taught our children—we taught our children about strangers all the time.
AMY GOODMAN : That was Sheriff Fred Abdalla, who is under fire for his handling of the Steubenville High School rape investigation.
For more, we&#8217;re joined by three guests. From North Carolina, Monika Johnson Hostler is with us. She&#8217;s president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Here in New York, we&#8217;re joined by Kristen Gwynne, associate editor at AltnerNet . Her recent piece is called &quot;How Anonymous Hacking Exposed Steubenville High School Rape Case.&quot; And by Democracy Now! videostream, we&#8217;re joined by &quot;X,&quot; a member of the hacktivist group Anonymous, using a pseudonym.
We welcome you all to Democracy Now! I want to begin with our guest here in the studio in New York. Kristen, explain how this case—because the actual attack occurred in August—how we&#8217;ve come to learn about it now in January?
KRISTEN GWYNNE : Well, the blogger, Alexandria Goddard, she was on the case from the beginning. She&#8217;s from Steubenville, Ohio, and so she had been following the details of it and actually tracing tweets from football players and athletes at the school almost immediately after the charges were filed in August. And she garnered the attention of the community on her blog. And even in the comments section, a lot of people were weighing in, either saying that, &quot;Yes, this is a football-crazed town,&quot; or actually blaming the victim for what happened, what allegedly happened to her. And after her blogging, The New York Times wrote an article about it, just a month ago, chronicling again the events of the evening and the possibility that more people were involved, in the end, than—
AMY GOODMAN : And what is believed that took place that night?
KRISTEN GWYNNE : Well, according to both The New York Times and Anonymous, what they&#8217;re saying happened was that a 16-year-old girl, who was from a neighboring town in West Virginia, was taken to a series of parties celebrating the end of the summer and the beginning of the football season. She was intoxicated or possibly date-raped, and unconscious even at one point, being carried by football players from party to party and allegedly sexually assaulted and raped both at parties and in between. Anonymous is saying that the sexual assaults may even have happened at the homes of assistant coaches to the football team, as well as the prosecutor.
AMY GOODMAN : I mean, the picture—the picture that has come out of two men holding this girl, dragging her to—a man holding her arms and a man holding her legs. I wanted to bring into the conversation Monika Johnson Hostler. If you can respond to what you have seen and heard described in this case, the fact that the police chief is saying there will be no more indictments. There have been two young men who have been charged, and they will be tried as juveniles in a few weeks.
MONIKA JOHNSON HOSTLER : Yes, thank you for having me, Amy.
I think my response is like most people&#8217;s: It&#8217;s a guttural response, that this is a violent, heinous act right here in the United States, where it appears that—for those of us who are not in Ohio, it&#8217;s taken a little bit longer for us to get the details that Kristie just described for us. And based on that description, I think most of us know, if this was any other type of case where there were onlookers or other people, that we would be considering and holding those people who also witnessed and also were a part of engaging in sexually assaulting or dragging this young woman from party to party as aiding and abetting or at least responsible, in some capacity, criminally, as well.
AMY GOODMAN : Isn&#8217;t some of this alleged to have happened at the home of the Jefferson County prosecutor?
MONIKA JOHNSON HOSTLER : Yes, that&#8217;s what I—
AMY GOODMAN : Kristen, and Monika?
MONIKA JOHNSON HOSTLER : That&#8217;s what I understand, that it was held at the home of a prosecutor. And what I can say, for the community and the state of Ohio, is it seemed, early on, the police chief at the time, not the sheriff, but—was readily open and willing for the attorney general to come in and take the case, which I think is more than appropriate, considering here in North Carolina, I&#8217;m from a small town where everyone does know everyone and football is paramount to the community, that it&#8217;s extremely important that there be someone outside that community engaged in the criminal prosecution of this case.
AMY GOODMAN : Jane Hamlin, who is the Jefferson County prosecutor, has recused herself from the case, presumably because of her son?
KRISTEN GWYNNE : Yes, and as has the local judge, who said that he—his granddaughter had been in a relationship with one of the accused.
AMY GOODMAN : And what is the family of the victim saying? Did the young woman say she didn&#8217;t even realize what had happened, that she had no memory of that night?
KRISTEN GWYNNE : She said she didn&#8217;t remember anything pretty much after leaving her home and that it wasn&#8217;t until she heard from friends and saw the pictures herself that she understood or began to understand and, I guess, pieced together what had happened to her that night.
AMY GOODMAN : I want to turn to the hacktivist from Anonymous, to &quot;X,&quot; a pseudonym for security reasons. Can you tell us what it is that you did, that your group did?
&quot;X&quot;: Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me on today. I think, to begin with, it&#8217;s important to understand that this action involved three separate entities that are overlapping and coordinated, but separate. The cyber-action, which involved the hacking and the various other cyber-aspects, were conducted by Anonymous in a very specific cell within Anonymous known as KnightSec. And then the ground protests, which were—took place on two Saturdays in a row—this last Saturday and the one before—were handled by Occupy Steubenville, so that was their responsibility. And then the third sort of part of the puzzle was the Local Leaks, which is the disclosure platform that we have, which released a great—just a copious amount of information on this case. And so, it&#8217;s important to understand that those three elements were involved.
AMY GOODMAN : I just want to say, especially for radio listeners who cannot see, that you&#8217;re wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, and your head is covered. Your voice is masked, as well as your name. Why are you doing this anonymously?
&quot;X&quot;: For security purposes. Actually, I&#8217;ve been on your show before. The last time I was on the air, I was still anonymous with a small &quot;a,&quot; and I was apprehended shortly after I appeared on your show last time by the FBI . And for a number of reasons, because I felt that the prosecution was political against myself, I chose to flee into exile, and I&#8217;m in Canada now. And so, my name is actually known to most people. You could research me and easily find out who I am. My appearance is masked because I&#8217;ve altered by appearance since I&#8217;ve gone into exile. And I&#8217;m now a fugitive, so I&#8217;ve altered my appearance. But I keep the name &quot;X&quot; because, to be honest with you, I kind of like it.
AMY GOODMAN : How did you get a hold—explain the video that your group, that Anonymous, that you got a hold of, that you released, what this 12-minute video showed.
&quot;X&quot;: Well, I think it&#8217;s apparent to anybody who can stomach watching it for the entire 12 minutes. I, myself, here at our location—we&#8217;ve been working night and day on this operation, and I&#8217;ve watched it at least a dozen times, and it makes me sick each time we watch it. I think it speaks for itself. These young men were sitting around immediately after the crime took place—that&#8217;s clear from what they say in the video. One person even gets up at one point and leaves in disgust and goes to check on the victim to see if the victim is OK. So the victim is still nearby, still—the crime is still in progress, in essence, when this video was shot. And a number of people are implicated in the video, including the subject of the video; Michael Nodianos implicates himself in this crime. So I think the video speaks for itself. And, you know, I can&#8217;t—I can&#8217;t imagine how the police do not see this as further evidence and do not levy charges against the people in the video.
AMY GOODMAN : What are you, Monika, calling for right now? Right now, two young people have been charged. There is a lot of community support for the football players. Wasn&#8217;t there reference in the video to Duke and the lacrosse players?
MONIKA JOHNSON HOSTLER : There was. And very much so, like &quot;X&quot; said, I had to actually watch the 12-minute video in increments, because it was sickening to my stomach to hear men, especially of this age, talk about how dead she was. And one of them, I think, even alluded to, if this was your daughter or your wife in 10 years, you wouldn&#8217;t be saying this, and he said, &quot;Yes, I would.&quot; So, for me, especially as a parent, not just as an advocate, it is sickening to hear the degree of which they go on and carry on about how much she was raped. And so, the correlation to Duke was, she was raped more than the Duke lacrosse players raped.
AMY GOODMAN : And so, what do you—
MONIKA JOHNSON HOSTLER : And so, what we are calling—what we are calling for is not just how this is handled in Steubenville, Ohio, but really asking America to take a hard look at ourselves in how we are—handle sexual violence and rape in our country. I think we&#8217;ve been able to point our fingers and turn our heads to rapes that have happened in other countries and not held ourselves accountable as Americans to say that we absolutely still have a culture of rape, where women and girls are still degraded and dehumanized, and rape is in the fabric of this country. And unfortunately, I would think, centuries later, that we would be further along in terms of our response, but yet we still see Americans blaming victims. So, in terms of our overall response, we&#8217;re calling for America to take a hard look at itself and really think about the culture that we&#8217;re raising our kids in and the things that we are allowing to happen by not acknowledging, as a community, as a society, the importance of supporting the rape victim.
And I do want to go back briefly to something you asked Kristie earlier about the rape victim recalling her story or what happened. And what I&#8217;d like to point out to your listeners and viewers is, oftentimes rape victims don&#8217;t consider what happened to them rape. Just as Kristie described, in this case, she was intoxicated, inebriated, that she wasn&#8217;t able to actually recall what happened, which is often the case that we hear with drug-facilitated or alcohol-facilitated rapes. So I think it&#8217;s important for people to understand, before we begin to blame the victim, when a victim recalls their story in pieces, it is often because of cases like this where it&#8217;s difficult to recall the incidents that happen, especially when they&#8217;re intoxicated or inebriated.
AMY GOODMAN : Kristen, can you talk about the role of social media in exposing the story—first Alexandria, the blogger, then Anonymous?
KRISTEN GWYNNE : Social media has played an interesting role in the story from the beginning, because without it, just prosecuting the case at all would have been difficult because so much of the evidence was tweets and Facebook posts and videos that kids put up on YouTube. And what Alexandria Goddard did was take screen shots of everything before the kids were smart enough, I guess, to realize that they needed to delete them. So she was able to compile evidence that—
AMY GOODMAN : And who is she?
KRISTEN GWYNNE : She was a blogger, a local—for the website Prinniefied.com , and she was also from the town. So she had, I guess, a personal interest in investigating further, because she said, from the minute she heard about the case, she believed that the football players were being treated specially because the town has so much invested in the team. And then, once Anonymous caught hold of it, they took it even further by exposing more—more tweets and then, of course, the video, which was just a stunning, I guess, testament to the rape culture in America and in this town, in particular.
AMY GOODMAN : Finally, &quot;X,&quot; or Christopher Doyon, your, you know, name that&#8217;s online, can you talk about OpPedoChat and talk about—well, I&#8217;m looking at Wired magazine . &quot;It could indicate [that] this is the project of one subsection of Anonymous, which would explain the slightly different tone to the information release. This isn&#8217;t the first anti-paedophile project from the group, either.&quot; And then it goes on to talk about the past ones.
&quot;X&quot;: Sure, Amy, I&#8217;ll be happy to, but I just want to point out one last thing on the Steubenville subject. There&#8217;s more to this than just a rape that&#8217;s being covered up because of football and because of legitimate revenue within that community. We have uncovered—Anonymous has uncovered a gigantic gambling ring in Steubenville that, you know, is—probably half of the revenue in that community is underground, and it involves gambling, involves drugs. So, there&#8217;s more to this than this. This story is about corruption. It&#8217;s about a sick fascination and fixation with football. And so, I encourage people to go to Local Leaks and look at the information that we&#8217;ve revealed, because this is—this goes deeper than just rape.
Regarding OpPedoChat—
AMY GOODMAN : We have 10 seconds.
&quot;X&quot;: OpPedoChat is an operation by Anonymous to uncover pedophiles on social media and to out them and to get them removed from social media and, hopefully, arrested and convicted for their crimes.
AMY GOODMAN : Well, Christopher Doyon, aka &quot;Commander X,&quot; I want to thank you for being with us, hacktivist with the hacktivist group Anonymous. Also, thank you to Monika Johnson Hostler with the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, as well as to Kristen Gwynne. AMYGOODMAN: Following the death of a young rape victim that galvanized tens of thousands of protesters in India, we turn now to a case of sexual violence here in the United States that’s only recently generated national attention, though it happened months ago. That’s the case of Steubenville, Ohio, where members of a high school football team allegedly raped an underage girl, possibly urinated on her unconscious body, over the course of an evening of partying in late August.

The young men chronicled their actions on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, using words such as "drunk girl," "rape" in their posts. One former football player tweeted, quote, "Song of the night is definitely Rape Me by Nirvana," and, quote, "Some people deserve to be peed on." In one video, an 18-year-old laughs about how unconscious the alleged rape victim was during the incident and refers to her as, quote, "the dead girl."

STEUBENVILLETEEN 1: Is it really rape? Because you don’t know if she wanted to or not. She might have wanted to. That might have been her final wish.

STEUBENVILLETEEN 2: No, y’all think she’s dead?

STEUBENVILLETEEN 1: She’s dead.

AMYGOODMAN: Before many of the partygoers could delete their incriminating posts, local crime blogger Alexandria Goddard made copies and publicized them on her website. She was sued for defamation, but the charges have since been dropped. Many Steubenville locals have criticized Goddard and the victim for bringing negative public attention to the football team. Head football coach Reno Saccoccia has refused to bench his players and reportedly advised them to delete any incriminating messages.

Well, now the cyber-activist group Anonymous has launched a campaign to unmask what they say is the football-crazy town’s attempt to cover up the sexual assault. Last month, the group hijacked the football team’s website and threatened to release the personal data of school officials, coaches and every player on the team if those involved in the suspected rape did not publicly apologize.

In August, after the girl’s parents reported the suspected rape, two football players were arrested and later charged with kidnapping and raping the 16-year-old woman. They are scheduled to stand trial as juveniles in February. However, on Saturday, Sheriff Fred Abdalla told protesters no more suspects would be charged in the rape case. Amidst boos from the crowds, Abdalla defended his department’s commitment to prosecuting sexual offenders.

SHERIFFFREDABDALLA: When I came into this office, I made a commitment to myself.

UNIDENTIFIED: When did you come in office?

SHERIFFFREDABDALLA: In 1985—that I would go after those people that have raped or those people who have sexually abused our young children. In the last—in the last 28 years, me and my officers, Captain Bill, have arrested over 200-plus individuals for sexually abusing children. And we taught our children—we taught our children about strangers all the time.

AMYGOODMAN: That was Sheriff Fred Abdalla, who is under fire for his handling of the Steubenville High School rape investigation.

For more, we’re joined by three guests. From North Carolina, Monika Johnson Hostler is with us. She’s president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Here in New York, we’re joined by Kristen Gwynne, associate editor at AltnerNet. Her recent piece is called "How Anonymous Hacking Exposed Steubenville High School Rape Case." And by Democracy Now! videostream, we’re joined by "X," a member of the hacktivist group Anonymous, using a pseudonym.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! I want to begin with our guest here in the studio in New York. Kristen, explain how this case—because the actual attack occurred in August—how we’ve come to learn about it now in January?

KRISTENGWYNNE: Well, the blogger, Alexandria Goddard, she was on the case from the beginning. She’s from Steubenville, Ohio, and so she had been following the details of it and actually tracing tweets from football players and athletes at the school almost immediately after the charges were filed in August. And she garnered the attention of the community on her blog. And even in the comments section, a lot of people were weighing in, either saying that, "Yes, this is a football-crazed town," or actually blaming the victim for what happened, what allegedly happened to her. And after her blogging, The New York Times wrote an article about it, just a month ago, chronicling again the events of the evening and the possibility that more people were involved, in the end, than—

AMYGOODMAN: And what is believed that took place that night?

KRISTENGWYNNE: Well, according to both The New York Times and Anonymous, what they’re saying happened was that a 16-year-old girl, who was from a neighboring town in West Virginia, was taken to a series of parties celebrating the end of the summer and the beginning of the football season. She was intoxicated or possibly date-raped, and unconscious even at one point, being carried by football players from party to party and allegedly sexually assaulted and raped both at parties and in between. Anonymous is saying that the sexual assaults may even have happened at the homes of assistant coaches to the football team, as well as the prosecutor.

AMYGOODMAN: I mean, the picture—the picture that has come out of two men holding this girl, dragging her to—a man holding her arms and a man holding her legs. I wanted to bring into the conversation Monika Johnson Hostler. If you can respond to what you have seen and heard described in this case, the fact that the police chief is saying there will be no more indictments. There have been two young men who have been charged, and they will be tried as juveniles in a few weeks.

MONIKAJOHNSONHOSTLER: Yes, thank you for having me, Amy.

I think my response is like most people’s: It’s a guttural response, that this is a violent, heinous act right here in the United States, where it appears that—for those of us who are not in Ohio, it’s taken a little bit longer for us to get the details that Kristie just described for us. And based on that description, I think most of us know, if this was any other type of case where there were onlookers or other people, that we would be considering and holding those people who also witnessed and also were a part of engaging in sexually assaulting or dragging this young woman from party to party as aiding and abetting or at least responsible, in some capacity, criminally, as well.

AMYGOODMAN: Isn’t some of this alleged to have happened at the home of the Jefferson County prosecutor?

MONIKAJOHNSONHOSTLER: Yes, that’s what I—

AMYGOODMAN: Kristen, and Monika?

MONIKAJOHNSONHOSTLER: That’s what I understand, that it was held at the home of a prosecutor. And what I can say, for the community and the state of Ohio, is it seemed, early on, the police chief at the time, not the sheriff, but—was readily open and willing for the attorney general to come in and take the case, which I think is more than appropriate, considering here in North Carolina, I’m from a small town where everyone does know everyone and football is paramount to the community, that it’s extremely important that there be someone outside that community engaged in the criminal prosecution of this case.

AMYGOODMAN: Jane Hamlin, who is the Jefferson County prosecutor, has recused herself from the case, presumably because of her son?

KRISTENGWYNNE: Yes, and as has the local judge, who said that he—his granddaughter had been in a relationship with one of the accused.

AMYGOODMAN: And what is the family of the victim saying? Did the young woman say she didn’t even realize what had happened, that she had no memory of that night?

KRISTENGWYNNE: She said she didn’t remember anything pretty much after leaving her home and that it wasn’t until she heard from friends and saw the pictures herself that she understood or began to understand and, I guess, pieced together what had happened to her that night.

AMYGOODMAN: I want to turn to the hacktivist from Anonymous, to "X," a pseudonym for security reasons. Can you tell us what it is that you did, that your group did?

"X": Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me on today. I think, to begin with, it’s important to understand that this action involved three separate entities that are overlapping and coordinated, but separate. The cyber-action, which involved the hacking and the various other cyber-aspects, were conducted by Anonymous in a very specific cell within Anonymous known as KnightSec. And then the ground protests, which were—took place on two Saturdays in a row—this last Saturday and the one before—were handled by Occupy Steubenville, so that was their responsibility. And then the third sort of part of the puzzle was the Local Leaks, which is the disclosure platform that we have, which released a great—just a copious amount of information on this case. And so, it’s important to understand that those three elements were involved.

AMYGOODMAN: I just want to say, especially for radio listeners who cannot see, that you’re wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, and your head is covered. Your voice is masked, as well as your name. Why are you doing this anonymously?

"X": For security purposes. Actually, I’ve been on your show before. The last time I was on the air, I was still anonymous with a small "a," and I was apprehended shortly after I appeared on your show last time by the FBI. And for a number of reasons, because I felt that the prosecution was political against myself, I chose to flee into exile, and I’m in Canada now. And so, my name is actually known to most people. You could research me and easily find out who I am. My appearance is masked because I’ve altered by appearance since I’ve gone into exile. And I’m now a fugitive, so I’ve altered my appearance. But I keep the name "X" because, to be honest with you, I kind of like it.

AMYGOODMAN: How did you get a hold—explain the video that your group, that Anonymous, that you got a hold of, that you released, what this 12-minute video showed.

"X": Well, I think it’s apparent to anybody who can stomach watching it for the entire 12 minutes. I, myself, here at our location—we’ve been working night and day on this operation, and I’ve watched it at least a dozen times, and it makes me sick each time we watch it. I think it speaks for itself. These young men were sitting around immediately after the crime took place—that’s clear from what they say in the video. One person even gets up at one point and leaves in disgust and goes to check on the victim to see if the victim is OK. So the victim is still nearby, still—the crime is still in progress, in essence, when this video was shot. And a number of people are implicated in the video, including the subject of the video; Michael Nodianos implicates himself in this crime. So I think the video speaks for itself. And, you know, I can’t—I can’t imagine how the police do not see this as further evidence and do not levy charges against the people in the video.

AMYGOODMAN: What are you, Monika, calling for right now? Right now, two young people have been charged. There is a lot of community support for the football players. Wasn’t there reference in the video to Duke and the lacrosse players?

MONIKAJOHNSONHOSTLER: There was. And very much so, like "X" said, I had to actually watch the 12-minute video in increments, because it was sickening to my stomach to hear men, especially of this age, talk about how dead she was. And one of them, I think, even alluded to, if this was your daughter or your wife in 10 years, you wouldn’t be saying this, and he said, "Yes, I would." So, for me, especially as a parent, not just as an advocate, it is sickening to hear the degree of which they go on and carry on about how much she was raped. And so, the correlation to Duke was, she was raped more than the Duke lacrosse players raped.

AMYGOODMAN: And so, what do you—

MONIKAJOHNSONHOSTLER: And so, what we are calling—what we are calling for is not just how this is handled in Steubenville, Ohio, but really asking America to take a hard look at ourselves in how we are—handle sexual violence and rape in our country. I think we’ve been able to point our fingers and turn our heads to rapes that have happened in other countries and not held ourselves accountable as Americans to say that we absolutely still have a culture of rape, where women and girls are still degraded and dehumanized, and rape is in the fabric of this country. And unfortunately, I would think, centuries later, that we would be further along in terms of our response, but yet we still see Americans blaming victims. So, in terms of our overall response, we’re calling for America to take a hard look at itself and really think about the culture that we’re raising our kids in and the things that we are allowing to happen by not acknowledging, as a community, as a society, the importance of supporting the rape victim.

And I do want to go back briefly to something you asked Kristie earlier about the rape victim recalling her story or what happened. And what I’d like to point out to your listeners and viewers is, oftentimes rape victims don’t consider what happened to them rape. Just as Kristie described, in this case, she was intoxicated, inebriated, that she wasn’t able to actually recall what happened, which is often the case that we hear with drug-facilitated or alcohol-facilitated rapes. So I think it’s important for people to understand, before we begin to blame the victim, when a victim recalls their story in pieces, it is often because of cases like this where it’s difficult to recall the incidents that happen, especially when they’re intoxicated or inebriated.

AMYGOODMAN: Kristen, can you talk about the role of social media in exposing the story—first Alexandria, the blogger, then Anonymous?

KRISTENGWYNNE: Social media has played an interesting role in the story from the beginning, because without it, just prosecuting the case at all would have been difficult because so much of the evidence was tweets and Facebook posts and videos that kids put up on YouTube. And what Alexandria Goddard did was take screen shots of everything before the kids were smart enough, I guess, to realize that they needed to delete them. So she was able to compile evidence that—

AMYGOODMAN: And who is she?

KRISTENGWYNNE: She was a blogger, a local—for the website Prinniefied.com, and she was also from the town. So she had, I guess, a personal interest in investigating further, because she said, from the minute she heard about the case, she believed that the football players were being treated specially because the town has so much invested in the team. And then, once Anonymous caught hold of it, they took it even further by exposing more—more tweets and then, of course, the video, which was just a stunning, I guess, testament to the rape culture in America and in this town, in particular.

AMYGOODMAN: Finally, "X," or Christopher Doyon, your, you know, name that’s online, can you talk about OpPedoChat and talk about—well, I’m looking at Wired magazine. "It could indicate [that] this is the project of one subsection of Anonymous, which would explain the slightly different tone to the information release. This isn’t the first anti-paedophile project from the group, either." And then it goes on to talk about the past ones.

"X": Sure, Amy, I’ll be happy to, but I just want to point out one last thing on the Steubenville subject. There’s more to this than just a rape that’s being covered up because of football and because of legitimate revenue within that community. We have uncovered—Anonymous has uncovered a gigantic gambling ring in Steubenville that, you know, is—probably half of the revenue in that community is underground, and it involves gambling, involves drugs. So, there’s more to this than this. This story is about corruption. It’s about a sick fascination and fixation with football. And so, I encourage people to go to Local Leaks and look at the information that we’ve revealed, because this is—this goes deeper than just rape.

Regarding OpPedoChat—

AMYGOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.

"X": OpPedoChat is an operation by Anonymous to uncover pedophiles on social media and to out them and to get them removed from social media and, hopefully, arrested and convicted for their crimes.

AMYGOODMAN: Well, Christopher Doyon, aka "Commander X," I want to thank you for being with us, hacktivist with the hacktivist group Anonymous. Also, thank you to Monika Johnson Hostler with the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, as well as to Kristen Gwynne.